Another Keezer Build, yay.

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

My first build, so it is less than fantastic but will work for my needs, until it doesn't. I am already planning to build a twin to this unit but that will be a little ways down the road.

I started with a Frigidaire 14.7c.f. Freezer. I wanted 10 taps, just because, well, why not?

So I started this build a few months ago. I built a base that was 8 inches high with casters built in so I could move the thing if necessary once loaded. I took pictures but now I cannot find them. You will see pics of the base in the coming photos.

Everything is 8/4 Alder. I picked it up at the local hardwood supply store when lumber prices were out of hand. Because the hardwood supply sells their lumber based on the price they paid, the 8/4 Alder was actually cheaper by far than the big box store for 2x8 dimensional lumber. I bought Alder because it was cheap and in stock. The twin to this unit will be made from a harder hard wood, oak, poplar, maple, anything but Alder. Although it is nice, it is extremely soft.

Then right after I got the base finished and got the freezer onto the base I got called to go to work out of town with no break to come home. That took 7 weeks right out of the center of my project. Once home I had to play catchup for a couple weeks before I could continue on the keezer build.

I spent a couple weeks ordering misc parts for my brewing operation, as well as a bunch of not inexpensive parts for the keezer. Included in my shopping spree are:

10 stainless 3 inch shanks with associated hardware
10 Nukataps with self closing springs
30 beer nut - ball lock adapters
30 gas/beer stainless torpedo ball lock disconnects
8 6-gallon torpedo kegs
2 2.5-gallon torpedo kegs
A couple gas manifolds with gauges.

I still need to order beer and gas line, flare fittings for the beer and gas lines, 3 bulkhead fittings, and I am sure a mess of other parts.

I stared my collar build. Milled the lumber, glued and screwed it all together. And started fixing and filling screw holes and other imperfections.

 

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

The collar is 6 inches tall. I was not entirely certain about tap locations or spacing of the taps or hole sizes and the like until the taps I ordered showed up. It would have certainly been a heck of a lot easier to drill holes in the face board before I screwed it all together but I got impatient.

Once the shanks arrived I was able to lay out the hole config. And started drilling holes. I drilled 40 mm counter bore holes to recess the shank nut about half an inch, and 23 mm through holes for the shanks. I bought 3 inch shanks so i needed to recess the shank nut to make everything fit in as tight a space as possible. The collar is about 1 3/4 thick and without recessing the nut there wouldn't be enough thread for the beer nut - ball lock adapter.

 

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

After drilling all the holes I again filled some imperfections

And got it set up on sticks so I could prime it.

And then block sand it to get it nearly perfect for paint

I ended up priming and blocking it 4 times. I don't know what the problem was, wether it was too cold or I was too tired or what, but I ran the primer. As hard as that is to do, I did it, it was easy to sand, it's primer and that is what it is for.

Once priming and blocking was done I sprayed base coat. I also ran the base coat. Waited for it to flash off and sanded my runs out. Once the runs were out I again sprayed base. It stated to look pretty good. After base flashed, I sprayed down some clear coat. Guess what? I ran the ever living crap out of the clear. In ran the clear so bad it dripped on the work bench and left a cool little outline.

After it dried overnight I sanded the runs and polished up the clear. I think it came out looking pretty good.

 

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

The next day I removed the freezer lid in preparation to install the collar. I set the collar in the freezer and immediately noticed that the location I chose to drill holes for he 3 bulkhead fittings and the temp probe through hole was in error. The temp probe hole and the right/outter most hole are in the exact location where the hinge is supposed to go. Whoops!

Otherwise it looks pretty good and I can likely work around the hinge issue by removing the hinge to install the bulkhead and maybe a little trim.

All is sitting pretty. I just need to set the lid on and mark the hinge holes.

Guess what! The lid doesn't fit the collar! If you notice in the above pictures there is a bevel on the freezer that is there to accommodate a matching bevel on the lid. I noticed the bevel on the freezer body, but didn't take note that there was a matching bevel on the lid. So the lid will not close. Big whoops!

 

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

Now what? The collar is built and the bevel needing to be in collar is about an inch deep. Can't exactly router that out. I mean you probably could but I don't have the propper tools to do that. So I made a guide plate to screw to my skill saw to make a 45° cut on the inside of the collar. It was not a perfect cut but I think when all is said and done it so be good enough.

I stared the filling process where I got a little wonky with the saw.

The one bulkhead and temp probe through holes were filled with poplar scraps, and I will be working on filling those imperfections. I also drilled a new bulkhead through hole and will be drilling two new temp probe size holes, one for the temp probe and one for a 12v power supply wire to run a PC case fan for ambient air circulating.

I also sanded everything back to primer since I will need to repaint it again in its entirety.

This is where I am today. There will likely be no progress on this in the next few days as I am tending to family duties.

 

[AkTom]

Looking good!

 

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

Very little progress last few days. I filled the imperfections where the bulkhead fitting repair took place. Drilled 3 new 3/8 holes for temp probe and pc fan power wires. I drilled the 3rd hole just to have an extra if necessary.

I primed and block sanded this thing 3 more times because of the top inside bevel. I went a little OCD trying to get the corners perfect.

The black in the corners is guide coat showing low spots. I finally sanded the corners down and added more filler and uses a chisel and razor blade to get them as close to perfect as I could. And then I realized I was being OCD and quit while I was ahead.

I still need to do one last block sand before I apply color.

 

[Ragman]

I really enjoy reading these types of posts. Its looking great so far. Looking forward to watching it progress into a fully functional keezer!

 

[JeffersonStateBrewing]

I am looking forward to getting it done. I have been working too long on this. I am really just trying to get it done so it takes up less shop space. I dunno if you notice but my shop is a full blown cluster at the moment (always really). Once I get this at least assembled I can move on to the brew stand. I don't even have beer to put on said kegerator yet.