Sorry I wasn't ambitious enough to document the build, but here's the finished project. It's a kitchen sink base cabinet from Home Depot, a deconstructed apartment fridge, an insulated cold box for 4 kegs, 2 co2 taps and a beergas tap.
Home made kegerator
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I ran a piece of 3/4"copper pipe form the cold box up into the tower. First beer i poured tonight had no foaming issues. I was a little concerned about this.....figured if it was a problem i would put a computer fan in the fridge to blow air up into the tower.
As far as the fridge goes.......the evaporator coils on the never fridges are taped to the inside of metal skin and then spray foamed....so to make sure i didn't tweak the evaporator lines i had to carefully pull apart all of the spray foam.
the fridge was completely ripped apart. I used the door to mount on the back. The compressor is in the area to the left of the cold box.
As far as the fridge goes.......the evaporator coils on the never fridges are taped to the inside of metal skin and then spray foamed....so to make sure i didn't tweak the evaporator lines i had to carefully pull apart all of the spray foam.
the fridge was completely ripped apart. I used the door to mount on the back. The compressor is in the area to the left of the cold box.
I like that tower! Very industrial looking
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I knew i wanted 3 taps, but i wasnt crazy about the typical tower with 3 taps grouped together, and as i looked at other options the price for the tower alone quickly got to $400 and up. So i was in a brew pub in Portland ME several months ago and they had all their taps run through iron pipe....bar was very cool. So that was my inspiration.
So......Its 1-1/2" black iron pipe, most of it bought from home depot, except for the side outlet T and the floor flange that i had to source through the web. Here's the rough parts list:
1-1/2" floor flange
12" nipple
Side Outlet T
Close Nipple x 2
elbow x 2
3/4" x 1-1/2" bushing
I'd guess i have less than $100 in the fittings.
I JB welded the shank nut into the back of the bushing so the shank could just thread into the bushing.
Getting the nipples on the back side of the shanks was a tricky process, but with patience i got it to work. I used the 90" nipples.......
threaded it all together and viola......all in all a pretty easy project.
I think it would look great with barn boards, and the beauty of it is you can customize to suit your bar.....one tower......two towers, the combinations with tee's and 90's are really limitless, especially if you are going with multiple taps. Originally my plan was two towers, elbows on each end and a standard Tee in the center for the three taps, but i decided it took up almost the entire width that way, so i setteled on teh single tower and side outlet Tee.
So......Its 1-1/2" black iron pipe, most of it bought from home depot, except for the side outlet T and the floor flange that i had to source through the web. Here's the rough parts list:
1-1/2" floor flange
12" nipple
Side Outlet T
Close Nipple x 2
elbow x 2
3/4" x 1-1/2" bushing
I'd guess i have less than $100 in the fittings.
I JB welded the shank nut into the back of the bushing so the shank could just thread into the bushing.
Getting the nipples on the back side of the shanks was a tricky process, but with patience i got it to work. I used the 90" nipples.......
threaded it all together and viola......all in all a pretty easy project.
I think it would look great with barn boards, and the beauty of it is you can customize to suit your bar.....one tower......two towers, the combinations with tee's and 90's are really limitless, especially if you are going with multiple taps. Originally my plan was two towers, elbows on each end and a standard Tee in the center for the three taps, but i decided it took up almost the entire width that way, so i setteled on teh single tower and side outlet Tee.
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panthers365
Member
looks totally awesome! Great job!
Great info!! The park where you used JB Weld was what I was most curious about. I was thinking maybe you found something that threaded right into the faucet.
Did you do anything to protect the Iron Pipe from moisture? I know right now I have a chrome tower with two taps and when I turn my tower blower on it sweats like no other. I am thinking it won't take long for this pipe to start to rust. If I went this route I might build the whole thing then "dip" the tower into a clear coat of some sort. My kegerator lives in my screened in covered patio where in the summer the Florida weather is less then polite to anything without a rust inhibitor.
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Hmmm.....hadn't really thought about that.....have to wait and see what happens I guess.
Yeah, keeping it inside and not having a tower cooler will obviously help from the sweating but still for general cleaning and spillage it might start to rust if unprotected. You could have used Galvanized but then you lose that rustic look.
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well it does just unscrew.......so if it starts to show signs of rust i can always pull it off and spray paint it with rust-oleum.
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