Keezer Collar Build (Pt. 2)

The build is going slowly, but that is mainly because I'm a bit ocd about getting things right.  I ended up taking my biggest oak board to my father's because his table saw is much larger than mine.  We were able to get the front panel cut just right.

Also I was able to borrow a router dovetail jig he had made long long ago.  This should make joining the front board with the two side boards easy and it looks great too.  Sadly after a quick test I realized my router needs some accessories so amazon to the rescue.

Finally tonight I touch the major leap and drilled my seven tap holes into the oak board.  Thanks to very careful measurements, everything seems to line up just right.

  Looks good so far.  As I said it is coming along, but very slowly.  That is just fine.  No rush.  Next I cut the hole for the temperature control module.

Keezer Collar Build (Pt. 1)

Introduction

First welcome.  This really is a blog to record the events of building things for my beer problem.  I'll probably also blog about brewing and my family.  Anyway, I'm not much for introductions so lets get started.

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Keezer Collar Build Part 1

So for my birthday I finally decided to live the dream.  What's the dream?  Well seven taps of course!  I'm making another kegerator.  Yes another one.  Why?  Well because the old one only had six taps.  That and it was hard as hell to get kegs in and out of it.  Really a pain in the ass.  So I bought this baby:

This right here is 14.9 cubic feet of awesome!  A chest freezer.  Delivered on March 7th.  Lets look inside...

Oh hello there six kegs.  Looks like there is room for two more for eight kegs, but wait...

I can put two more on the hump where the compressor is?  But the lid won't close or will it????

That right there is a Google Sketchup of a little thing people call a collar.  A Keezer (smushing keg and freezer together makes keezer)  collar to be exact.  With this I can cleanly install my taps, my co2 gas lines and different distributors to split the co2 gas lines up, and a temperature control device that will keep the freezer at perfect beer serving temperature.  The best part is that the collar is actually two pieces of wood.  An inner collar of pine for resting the lid on and then three panels of oak wood that extend down past the inner collar to lock everything in place and really improve the aesthetics.

Now I know what you are probably thinking and yes you should probably get that spot looked at down there...errr Yes I know I'm a bit nuts.  But a collar makes perfect sense.  I can do all I want to the wood without ever harming the freezer itself.  I like that idea since my fridge in basement has all kinds of holes in it.

So with a plan in hand I went down to my local home depot and proceeded to spend twenty minutes looking for some straight pine boards.  I also picked up some 2x4 lumber to make a frame for the base.  I wanted the frame to be on wheels so that I wouldn't have a problem of moving the entire thing.

Here you see the base frame I made.  I wasn't too pleased with location of the wheels so I moved the shorter 2x4 in wards about six inches and that made things better.  Then I cut the pine panes and carefully screwed them together.

And here you see the color with the lid on top.  Even though I tried to get thing right two of the corners didn't sit down.  So I put some weights on them to get the collar to sit right.

The oak board that would on the outside. I'm liking what I see so far.

At some point I want to put a bit of a collar on the bottom to hide the wheels and the space between the floor and the freezer.  Just not now.

Got the tap holes lined up and drilled out.  That silver stuff below is left over foam board from a previous project (fermentation chamber).  Perfect for insulating the inside of the collar.

And the collar is back on with the foam board cut and attached.  Also cut out a rectangular hole for the digital temperature control module.  The next step was to attach foam tape to the bottom of the collar for a tight seal and then start working on the oak.  Since I'm my father's child I try too hard to be perfect at things.  

So I'm kind of at a point now where all I'm doing is building things that help me use things such as a cross cut sled for my table saw.  That is a bit of a sore subject so I'll just move on.  I've probably been working on jigs and what not for almost two weeks now.  Of course at some point I realized that the freezer lid hinges weren't going to line up with the length of the pine wood.  

Looks like I'm going to have to drill new holes in the hinge brackets so that I can then attach the hinge to the collar and the lid appropriately.

Again here is the collar.  I tested out the look and size of the oak board again.  I'm liking what I see.

Finally here is a close up of the collar from the inside.  The foam board and the foam insulation tape should really help keep a stable temperature inside.  

This is a slow build, no doubt.  The problem is that power tools make noise.  Noise doesn't work when you have a sleeping baby so I have like 30 minutes or so a night to use my tools.  Not much time but my wife has been accommodating and I'm at a point now where I can finally continue working on the collar. 

So what's left?  Well I have some of the oak cut to length.  I finally did that tonight.  I need to miter my corners for a clean fit.  I wanted to do a real joint like a box or dovetail joints, but I think for this application a simple miter should suffice.  Then all that is left is to sand and finish the boards, attach the oak outer collar to the pine inner collar, run the plumbing for the co2 and liquid lines, wire up a computer fan to properly circulate air, and then wire up the temperature controller.  Really not much left...  I might be done by next year.  No matter when it is done, I have really enjoyed the ride!