First of all thanks to everyone who has shared their builds on this forum. I have read a lot of them and learned a lot. The biggest influence for this build came from Hoppopotomus and his knotty pine build and Jester and his keezer build. And I owe a big thanks to my uncle who owns a cabinet shop in Apache Junction AZ who helped me put all this together. If I were building this myself I would have went with a collar. But since I had the help of a professional I went with the Jester style keezer. I first bought a Kenmore 8.8 cu ft chest freezer from Sears. I had a gift card and with the freezer on sale it ended up costing me about $150. I purchased the Perlick Perl Forward Sealing Faucet (525SS) from Austin Homebrew Supply while they were on sale. I think they were $22. The drip tray came from barproducts.com. The rest of the stuff came from my local brew store, The Home Brewery. We wanted to leave 3 inches of space around the freezer to help keep it cool. Since I didnt bring the freezer with me to my uncles shop (I live in Missouri) we went with the measurements from the web page which I think took into account the hinges because we had a few extra inches from front to back.
We started out by framing the base to go around the freezer. The bottom is plywood while the front and sides are oak veneered mdf.
We placed a couple of pieces of plywood across the back to give it some more support. Here is picture of one of them going in. Both boards were actually permanently placed after I got home and put the freezer in. These boards also help keep the freezer from sliding or tipping back when I open the lid because of the support lifts I installed. More on that later though.
I installed some coasters I originally purchased for a different project from Lowes or Home Depot a few years back. The extra holes you see for the wheels are where the wheels were originally before I realized the measurements for the freezer werent exactly right. When I started looking at the lid in comparison to the base I was building, the base was huge. Thats when I guessed that the measurements on the web page must have included the hinges and I also included 3 inches on the back of the freezer which I dont need since the back is going to be mostly open. So I trimmed off about 4 inches off the back and repositioned the wheels.
I then framed the front and sides with oak and glued them on. I then added some moulding for the panel detail.
We started out by framing the base to go around the freezer. The bottom is plywood while the front and sides are oak veneered mdf.
We placed a couple of pieces of plywood across the back to give it some more support. Here is picture of one of them going in. Both boards were actually permanently placed after I got home and put the freezer in. These boards also help keep the freezer from sliding or tipping back when I open the lid because of the support lifts I installed. More on that later though.
I installed some coasters I originally purchased for a different project from Lowes or Home Depot a few years back. The extra holes you see for the wheels are where the wheels were originally before I realized the measurements for the freezer werent exactly right. When I started looking at the lid in comparison to the base I was building, the base was huge. Thats when I guessed that the measurements on the web page must have included the hinges and I also included 3 inches on the back of the freezer which I dont need since the back is going to be mostly open. So I trimmed off about 4 inches off the back and repositioned the wheels.
I then framed the front and sides with oak and glued them on. I then added some moulding for the panel detail.