Keezer Collar Advice

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dnelson1025

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Hey all,

I've finally gotten around to building a collar for my new freezer - problem is it's a little crooked (see picture). It's about 3/4" away from the top of the freezer on the front left side.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? Should I just scrap it and start over? I'm pretty sure it just happened to be the way the wood is shaped, but feel free to correct me and tell me I'm a terrible carpenter. Thanks!

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Try taking all the screws out and reassembling it with the boards sitting on the freezer, one corner at a time making sure it stays down. Also sight down each board to make sure they are straight. If one board is warped you may have to just replace it, without scrapping the whole thing. Also make sure the cuts on the cross pieces are 90 degrees.
 
Are your side pieces the same length?

Edit: NM, I misunderstood what the issue was, I thought it was out-of-square as viewed from above. Post above should cover you.
 
It looks like all the corners are joined evenly so the only way for that to happen is one or more of the boards is warped. Figure out which one and either plane it straight or replace it.
 
I had a similar issue with my collar. After reassessing the boards it was obvious that I had one that was ever so slightly warped. I ended up removing the screws and reassembling on a known flat surface (garage floor in my case) and added a couple of shims to one corner which forced the boards to square up. I mounted the collar with silicon (weigh it down for a couple of days) and all was good to go. That was about a year and a half ago and it's going strong.
 
It would appear that the corners are not miter but butt jointed instead so I would definately look for a warped board and correct that issue.
 
The trick is to figure out which board is warped. Then screw them together so they're still flush with your flat surface. In my case that meant the bottom screw on the left side could go in, but as soon as I put the upper screw in, it would not be flat.

You can see the shims in the upper part of the butt joint. I only needed to shim one side as the board straighten'd out on the other end. All that said, this is in an unfinished part of my basement and isn't for looks...purely functional!! :)

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When working with dimensional lumber (2x4, 2x6, etc) you have to be especially careful in choosing pieces to avoid warped boards.

Put a weight on the collar and see if it will flatten out, or take off the lid and place it on top of the collar and see if the weight of the lid straighten out the collar. If need be you could undo the screws and fill with epoxy and try rescrewing the collar when under pressure of the lid to see if it straightens the collar. If that does not work you need to replace the warped boards.
 
Thanks for the help everyone. I went with the shim route. I couldn't cut a piece of wood to size, but some bamboo strips I had lying around worked well.
 
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