Advice on a collar for fermentation chamber

[solavirtus]

I'm looking for advice/suggestions on an easy/simple steps for installing a collar on a chest freezer that I just bought for a fermentation chamber.

Here's a little back story:
I bought a regular upright fridge for a fermentation chamber, that I recently converted into a kegerator. For a ferm chamber, I just bought a small (about 5 cu. ft.) chest freezer. I can squeeze a carboy/bucket into the lower part just fine, but I could fit a second one in on the hump if I install a collar, so that's what I'm aiming to do.

Does anyone have advice or suggestions for installing a collar? It certainly doesn't need to be pretty, just functional. I'm thinking a 2x4 or 2x6 collar is what I need. It's a pretty standard small chest freezer, but I don't have a model number or measurements right now.

The other thing is a fan of some kind. Reading over threads, it looks like it's important to get good air circulation inside the chamber. I was planning on just running an extension cord inside to run a small fan and my temp controller with heat wrap and/or ceramic heat bulb. Anything wrong with that?

Thanks HBTers!

 

[DrDarwin]

I made a chest keezer using a couple of 2x8 pieces (I needed the height), some wood screws, and liquid nails/silicon. Just remove the lid, size the wood for your freezer, and decide whether you want the collar attached to the lid, or to the unit. Mine wasn't too pretty, but it did the trick. You can do a quick search for keezer on the forums to find all sorts of clever solutions with better, more specific instructions.

There's nothing wrong with an extension cord and a fan/heat source. Others have also used old cell phone/router/computer power supplies to power small computer fans for circulation.