No frills Trex composite collar Keezer build

[Tommydee]

Nothing earth shattering here, but not many have used composite decking for the collar, probably with good reason, as it has some drawbacks.

Some pros is if you just built a deck as I did, you probably have free scrap. Also, I really don't like the time involved sanding and poly coating things, with composite, this isn't needed.

And these boards while thin at 1", appear to have a nice, clean surface for the lid gasket to match, And are very flat and uniform in this dimension.

Cons are you pretty much need to mitre, and you really need to have a nice chopsaw, 90 degree clamp, and practice on scrap with the optimal screw, predrill size and technique on a flat surface to keep it looking decent. Ugly plastic miters look way worse than wood ones. Another con is my scrap had warped in the Bagster, so I had to heat it and bend with a kettlebell, but not a big deal...and the bend did not affect the "flatness" against top of freezer and lid.


Freezer- I got an upright freezer for free recently, so we moved the food from the magic chef, and this freed up my GE 7.1 cu ft for a Keezer. the hump on this is smaller than My magic chef, and since I run pinlocks, and the hump fits a 4th keg with the 5.5" height of my trex boards. Also, GE has a lock as I have tweens, and the front surface is totally compatible with dry erase markers, so my kids don't mix up the kombucha tap with the beer ones! So, the magic chef got demoted to ferm chamber.

Tools used for collar:





Bending boards with heat. There are 100 better ways to do this, but the kettle bells and heater were close to me in the basement, and it worked




Dryfit collar to check dimensions






No need for forstner, spade bit works pretty clean. Decided 3 faucets for now, will use my picnic tap on rare 4th keg, can easily expand to 4th later. Went with 3" center to center spacing on right side to keep taps over hump, away from hoisting kegs center and left. Also needed to sqeeze to avoid relocating the lock. I like the tighter look of the 3" spacing, and if I add a hanging drip tray later, this spacing Is standard. Further most tap is 4" from end of board, which was minimum I could do, and get shanks in without issue.

 

[The_Bishop]

None of your pictures are showing up.

 

[Tommydee]

I can't get the pics where I want them on this forum, but they are at the bottom of the post, I believe.

So, I actually posted the first pics while waiting in urgent care to get my hand sewn up, thanks to a mishap with the utility knife. :fro:

Got home, finished the foam and siliconed the collar to the keezer. I used locktite premium, which is serious stuff, for foam to deckboard, and in the mitred corners. Basically permanent. I used GE siliconeII all weather for sealing the collar to the keezer. Also siliconed in a Home Depot cheap trim piece to cover the lock space under the collar...I might mount the lock on the collar at a later time, but not in the near term. In a few days when dry, I'll detail the inside cracks with silicone. Note I shoved a temp piece of foam as a cross brace, since those boards were wanting to bow back. Im hoping the silicone will hold, then it will be reversible back
to freezer.

 

[BrooklynTom]

Looks good. I hope your hand heals quickly.

 

[Tommydee]

All my stuff showed up from kegconnection/birdman, and knocked this out today. Call it a keezer! Managed to keep all my limbs....barely.

 

[patthebrewer]

Nice! Simple and elegant.....often the best kind of solution

 

[Tommydee]

Checking in 11 months later....decided a 4th Perlick and a simple drip tray with scrap brackets would do the trick. (Originally considered nitro tap...but what a pain) In a search to get ideas on mounting drip tray, saw a towel bar from rocketbrewers build and stole that idea, since I’m about to tear apart a bathroom, it’s 1 less thing that will land in a dumpster. Put the lock back on, in case the teen has a party.

Looks funny with the 3-1 offset, but didn’t want to mess with the lock location, and we often have a non beer tap such as kombucha....so segregating a tap makes sense.

Simple, but works.