my bar build-tracking my progress here-

[chainsawbrewing]

I think I need to drop over when you get yer bar done!!!

do it man!

got a SWEET score on some acrylic blocks on craigslist, $1 a piece. it took 90 of them to cover the whole bar. they're just clipped together right now, and last night i started "grouting" them with white vinyl adhesive caulk, then i'll frame them all in with T strip and 1x4's and trim them out. then i gotta figure out the easist/chepest way to illuminate them from behind. i want them to have a blue glow to them.

also put my caps up on the top to see how they would look. as you can see i'm short by a lot of caps, i got a thread in the classifieds looking for some crown cap donations.

brewed 10 gallons of death by dunkel beer last friday, it's fermenting in the closet right now, and also picked up three corny kegs over the weekend, and a 20lb co2 tank, and got the 45* cut for my bar molding and figured out i'm like 20 inches short after cutting the two 7ft pieces with the 45* cuts for the corner. grrrr....


oh well, it's all coming along nicely. i plan on renting a finishing nail gun this weekend to get the bar moldling fastened up, and then getting my co2 tank filled, and buying some perlicks, shanks, hoses, and fittings, and hopefully finishing the "grouting" and framing for the blocks and getting them up.

 

[nystevecf]

Home depot/Lowes sells rope lights. They would work well for that application and you wouldnt notice them. Also nice score on those blocks, they are usually freakin expensive.

 

[Brewin_CRAZY]

Pretty sweet man, cant wait to see it all finished! How are you going to secure the bottle caps? Might I recommend putting a lip on the inside of the bar and filling it with a clear epoxy (polymer resin). That way you will have a smooth surface and the bottle caps will never come off. I did it on a wood table I built that my sister did some crazy artwork on. It has been outside for 3 years and still looks like new.

 

[eschatz]

Love the bar. That pool looks great about now too!

 

[nystevecf]

Pretty sweet man, cant wait to see it all finished! How are you going to secure the bottle caps? Might I recommend putting a lip on the inside of the bar and filling it with a clear epoxy (polymer resin). That way you will have a smooth surface and the bottle caps will never come off. I did it on a wood table I built that my sister did some crazy artwork on. It has been outside for 3 years and still looks like new.

That is what he said he plans to use, I think he mentioned it at the beginning of the post. That stuff does work great!

 

[Cape Brewing]

PM me if you want. I have a BUTTLOAD of caps I can send you. Seriously. I have a foot tall "brandy snifter" sitting on my bar, overflowing with caps... and there are very few BCM ones in there.

From the look of the pics, i could finish your bar with them no problem.

Just bounce me your address if you want 'em and I'll ship 'em to you.

I won't even charge you. All I ask in return is two things:
1) you post a pic of all of the caps in the bar!
2) You admit that the New England Patriots are by FAR and away the most dominant franchise between them and the Colts.

That's all I ask.

 

[Clayton]

looks great aside from the black ceiling.
i like the caps , blocks and wall leage

 

[Clayton]

Der Polkas

 

[Tripod]

Thank you for sharing these photos! I get inspired watching other bars go up. Mine will come soon...in the mean time brew, brew, brew!

-Tripod

 

[purechaos]

I saw this and thought what a cool gesture,

I won't even charge you. All I ask in return is two things:
1) you post a pic of all of the caps in the bar!

then i saw this and realized its just another delusional pats fan looking to get a deal on his bottle caps.

2) You admit that the New England Patriots are by FAR and away the most dominant franchise between them and the Colts.

That's all I ask.

 

[Yambor44]

Brian, looks real good! Thats going to be awesome.

 

[chainsawbrewing]

PM me if you want. I have a BUTTLOAD of caps I can send you. Seriously. I have a foot tall "brandy snifter" sitting on my bar, overflowing with caps... and there are very few BCM ones in there.

From the look of the pics, i could finish your bar with them no problem.

Just bounce me your address if you want 'em and I'll ship 'em to you.

I won't even charge you. All I ask in return is two things:
1) you post a pic of all of the caps in the bar!
2) You admit that the New England Patriots are by FAR and away the most dominant franchise between them and the Colts.

That's all I ask.

wow. thanks man! i'll pm you my address.

i'll have no problem posting up pics, i plan on doing that once it's all done anyways.

and as far as admiting the patriots are better than the colts, sure, i'll admit that. but don't take my opinion too seriously, i don't even know the name of more than a handfull of the colts players, and the only patriot's name i know is tom brady. i didn't even watch the colts game when they were in the superbowl a couple years ago. i live, and was born and raised in INDIANA, we're a basketball state. all these "colts fans" are either transplants from other states, or are just confused from when bobby knight got fired. it wasn't more than 4 years ago when we were practically begging the colts to leave the state, and go somewhere else, and then they have a good year, win the superbowl, and they build some big a$$ stadium, and now when i buy chicken nuggets i have to shell out more money for a dumb freaking "tax" for a sport, stadium that is too big and expensive, for a sport that i don't care about! i honestly couldn't give two sh!ts about football. i'm just glad you didn't ask me to admit something silly like Boston College basketball was better than Indiana University basketball.

 

[Cape Brewing]

Yeah I hate BC so you won't get an argument outta me.

Got your PM. I'll pack those caps up today and swing through the post office this afternoon.

 

[MeatyPortion]

It's looking great!

 

[P-Lay]

...then i gotta figure out the easist/chepest way to illuminate them from behind. i want them to have a blue glow to them.

That got me wondering. I did some searching and this product looks interesting. I'm not sure what it costs, but it could work.

Californianeon

 

[chainsawbrewing]

That got me wondering. I did some searching and this product looks interesting. I'm not sure what it costs, but it could work.

Californianeon

I called them. it sells by the linear foot. a 1" wide strand is $15 a foot, a 2" wide strand is $25 a foot. not too bad, BUT, it requires a special power adapter dealy, which is $300

i'm really not going to be able to shell out quite that much, i'll probably just go with some l.e.d. rope lighting.

 

[TristanL]

Wow, your bar looks stellar! I am also impressed with the speed of your progress. I spent 4 months last winter on my Man Room (cigar lounge) and there are still a few finishing touches to be done!

 

[caspio]

I called them. it sells by the linear foot. a 1" wide strand is $15 a foot, a 2" wide strand is $25 a foot. not too bad, BUT, it requires a special power adapter dealy, which is $300

i'm really not going to be able to shell out quite that much, i'll probably just go with some l.e.d. rope lighting.

For backlighting, something cheap like LED ropes would probably work. If you have any shapes you want to outline though, check out EL (electroluminescent) wire. It's pretty commonly used by case modders making cool computers, but I've also seen it used in cars and things like that. Far and away the coolest use I've seen though was on a couch. All the seams had EL wire run along them, so when it was dark the couch was outlined in neon. That stuff is flexible and can be pretty tough too, so it was cool to be able to just sit right down on it. The couch also had two LCD TV's, two 15" subs built underneath, etc.

or you could just make a cool suit out of it

 

[Cape Brewing]

Caps have been mailed. You should have 'em Saturday.

 

[chainsawbrewing]

Caps have been mailed. You should have 'em Saturday.

awesome, i REALLY appreciate it!

GO PATS! :cross:

 

[Cape Brewing]

no problem at all. I remember building my bar and how anxious I was to get it done. You sitting there, having the whole thing held up because you needed caps, when I had a ton of them just sitting behind the bar... that's crazy.

Hell... I think it's cool that my caps are going to out to Indiana and are going to be part of a cool lookin' bar. That was worth the price of postage.

I'll print out a pic when it's done and tack it on the wall or something... that way I can tell my regulars, "Yeah, see that bar? It's out in Indiana... see all those caps?? A bunch of them were from beers your drank."

 

[Cape Brewing]

then i saw this and realized its just another delusional pats fan looking to get a deal on his bottle caps.

Greatest... team.... EVER!! :rockin::rockin::rockin:

Claiming anything else does nothing but place a white-hot spotlight on your shear ignorance of the sport.

joking... but the Pats do rule. 19-0 this year. It's comin'. They got robbed on it before and they're gonna do it this year.

sorry...

enjoy the caps!

 

[chainsawbrewing]

got quite a bit done this weekend, considering all the "other" work i had to do.
first off, i got the caps in the mail, once again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. it should be more then enough to fill up the top.

ok, i got my hand railing put up, got the rest of the bar top all trimmed out, got the plywood put up on the face of the bar, painted it white, put up two 48ft rope lights, difused the light with some plastic, framed out with 1x2's off the face of the bar to put the glass blocks 1 3/4" away from the plywood/rope lights, and anchored the glass blocks to the wall with 1/4" X 6" long chrome bolts on each corner.

also, framed up a sort of rectangle on the end wall of the bar where i was short the oak handrailing piece, and am putting 5 hooks inside to house five personalized beer mugs for the guys.

planning on staining all the trim dark walnut this week, and poly'ing the shiznit out of it all.

i'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and getting REALLY excited about this project, and it actually looks like a bar now. i'm still suprised that everything is as square, solid, and nice as it is. i had ZERO idea what i was doing, i have never built anything before really, as close to this magnitude, and i used mostly hand tools, nothing fancy, and i'm very damn proud of how it's come along!

close up of the trim

photos really don't do the block lighting justice. it's flippin' sweet in person.

 

[nystevecf]

Looks amazing so far!

 

[Cape Brewing]

Did the caps show up?? If they didn't make it Saturday, they should definitely be there today. It was supposed to be two-day delivery from Thursday morning.

 

[MeatyPortion]

Looks great! Keep with the updates, plz.

 

[chainsawbrewing]

Did the caps show up?? If they didn't make it Saturday, they should definitely be there today. It was supposed to be two-day delivery from Thursday morning.

yes, they showed up saturday. thanks again, thanks a TON, i laid them all out, and picked out the few BMC's out of there, and there are plenty to cover the whole bartop, so i'm in business!

 

[chainsawbrewing]

got the stuff stained last night. it looks AWESOME!

 

[chainsawbrewing]

i also got a little better photo of the illuminated blocks, with my better camera, and no flash.

this is more of how it looks in person, the plastic i used to diffuse the light evens it out more, and has less definition of the actual ropes, and more just even, diffused light, making the blocks kind of "glow".

 

[Loweface]

Looks great. I particularly like the HB Litre glasses.... Have one myself...