Just finished mine last night - I got the deal from Home Depot as well. I decided to do only 3 Perlick 525SS taps - 3 beers on tap, 3 aging behind them. All of the other tubing, connections, etc came from Midwest. Only task left is to get the missing gas QD for the incoming line - thankfully I've got NB and Midwest within 20min drives
On the first photo below, it shows the front corner detail. Routing skill aside, I decided to frame the collar in 1x8" pine and then face the sides in 1/4" oak plywood and the front with a real slab of 1x8" oak. The plywood was half the cost - I think all the wood together was < 30 bucks. The bottom frame is also 1x8" pine with 6 casters rated at 90lbs each.
I routed the corners to help hide the fact that I routed the bottom edge of the front to get it over the lip - making less of a mess for drops on the front. If you go the plywood route, I highly recommend using a flush cut router bit - I cut all the pieces long, then used the router to size things precisely. Know thy limitations....
If you are making a collar for this freezer that will sit inside the lip, you might want to space the hinges off of the back just a bit - I needed to to get the rear seal to line up properly. I used a 1" washer I had laying around - put it right above the _bottom_ two screws between the hinge and wood. Placing it higher will tweak the lid angle just enough that it won't seal around the front very well. I also used exterior grade white caulking to seal the collar to the top - more moisture and temp friendly. I also sealed the whole mess with the spray-on Minwax Poly - spraying was much quicker and easier than having to deal with brushes, sanding, etc.
All in all - it doesn't look like the dog chewed on it and more importantly....it serves beer
Obligatory Peer Born:
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