Converting a coffin keezer to a collard wooden top

[inhousebrew]

So after moving out of my buddy's house almost two years ago I lost access to his keezer which left me (gasp) bottling beers again. At first it was fun and the wife thought it was something cool to do together. That sentiment died quickly after bottling three batches in one day when she declared that it was time to get a keezer. Being limited on money we went the used craigslist route and this behemoth was available and cheap.


here she is, in all her grotesque beauty


And the coffin, problems outlined below

It was a monstrosity that leaked cold air everywhere, weighed a billion pounds thanks to the thick tiled top (which I thought would break off and kill me ever time I opened it) and just generally looked too rustic (read poorly put together) for my taste. So yesterday I made a plan, gutted it and went to Home Depot. I guess I just wanted to document this build here for my own use or inevitably for the help I'm going to need.



After gutting it I had to scrap of the remnants of the adhesive to get a usable surface


And the frame

 

[inhousebrew]

So anyways, there's a couple problems with the rebuild.

The first is that the lid was destroyed. Holes cut through for beer lines for some reason the hinges were replaced with door hinges that support zero weight and it was obviously covered with mortar and tiled. I've got a plan in my head that will hopeful be a decent and good looking fix. I've seen a couple keezer here with wooden lids with a tapped collar attached to them allowing the beer lines to just move up an out of the way when the lid is opened. This is the route I'm going and we have what was supposed to be a maple countertop that was put together a while ago and is currently abandoned with no use. I'll pop a collar on that to put the taps on, insulate and attach.


Here it is, it's not perfectly even all around but the grain looks nice. It's going to need to be cut down to fit.


The second problem is that the hinges are missing and there is nothing to attach said lid/collar too so I'm going to build a second supportive collar to adhere to actual chest freezer. This will be more heavy duty and will attach the actual lid with some supportive spring loaded hinges on the inside and some regular old door hinges on the outside. At least, that's what I'm thinking.

Collar #1 and collar #2. Went with oak for the wood that will be showing and a american walnut stain.


And here are those spring loaded support hinges. They say 4 can support about 30lbs. Hopefully that's around where I end up but we'll see.