Minimum Viable Product

My keg and all the connections arrived today so I have what I need to pour beer! My sister is also in town for the weekend so there are actually some action shots for a change!

I did get the hole in the lid cut and the recess for the drip tray. You can also see my assistant keeping tabs.

Anyone who has used a telephoto lens can appreciate how close I actually was to this guy.

All the gas and beer lines!

Sadly, I will need more CO2 very soon.

First keg in the keezer!

Pay no attention to that man behind the faucet...

Pressure was a little low but the customer feedback was all positive!

Pivot

Wednesdays kind of suck for the same reason as Mondays. I didn't get home until quarter to eight so my working hours were diminished. Otherwise, with things coming along I was able to get a good idea of what the finished kegerator would look and feel like and I didn't think it was quite right. The tap handles were quite far away even by my reach, much less anyone less than 6'. So I went back to the model and pulled them closer. To make this happen I brought the drip tray forward into the slate tiles.

As a bonus it does give a nice continuous feel to the slate and opens up the upright portion more so that the beer lines should get more cold air. It does mean that I will need to cut the tiles. I spent close to an hour slowly working through the first tile with my jig saw. The tile saw blade was good and dull by the end so I'll need another before I attempt to cut the second tile. But it served as a good proof of concept. 

My jig saw was feeling close to an overheat by the end anyway so it was a good time to call it a night.

Tomorrow is another Montreal playoff game so I will again have a reduced set of working hours. I am adjusting my goal down from finished before my wife is home on Monday to functional. Finished makes for a fine stretch goal but is slipping away.

...now we glue

Just one photo today. I cut all the piece of trim I need. My plan for the trim involves a lot of set it and forget it wood glue with my only two clamps. If I keep doing another piece every few hours I should get the bulk of the trim done by the time it hits critical path. Until then, I can work on the collar insulation and the structure of the tower piece. Tonight I also put another coat of stain on my panels. Hopefully they look good afterward because I am out of Jacobean stain.

It is starting to take less imagination now. Don't ask me why I bought the drip tray a week before I ordered the taps and lines...

Mondays

Mondays are always tough due to late work meetings that run into even later phone calls with a team of engineers in China. By the time I get home the sun has set and I've only got a half hour before it gets too dark to work outside.

I made the most of my time and cut my lid and side panels.

Dry fit is looking good. I might have wanted the grain to run the other direction but I wasn't thinking of that when I asked the home depot guy to cut it to a size that would fit in my pickup (read Mazda 3).

I spent the remainder of the evening staining said panels. I wish Jackie was here to take this shot, the lighting was tough and I know she'd take a better photo. You will have to deal with the reflection and the fact that I could not make the colour look right.

Tomorrow I should be able to get home in a better time and get the mitre saw out. 

Framed

Quick post. I got the framing up and everything is measuring square and to plan. Next comes the lid!

Framing

Yesterday I cut all the pieces I would need for framing the keezer. Nothing of it will be seen in the finished project which is kind of nice since it required some of the most difficult skill saw acrobatics. 

I was not fully satisfied with the results of the first piece so I changed my method.

At the end of the day I had everything ready to assemble. Unfortunately I was late for dinner.

Late Start

Today got off to a late start as I knew it would.

I started the day with a run, then went to town for a few more things as well as general weekend chores. My wife and I have a task division system which has me in charge of our fleet of vehicles and the snow tires on our Mazda have been eating at the back of my mind for the past month, as has the oil in the car looking black and about half a quart low.

While in Carson solving these issues I could not resist watching some of the Bruins/Habs playoff game.

Regardless, I am at it now with what I believe is everything I need for the keezer shell. I still need to make an order for the beer taps, lines, gas distributor, etc. but that is an evening job.

Some assembly required.

On your marks...

Today I am starting my kegerator (technically a keezer) project photoblog!

I took some photos last weekend of the before. By next weekend I hope to be taking the after. Progress this week has been entirely academic. I started with a small chest freezer and a mental picture, and over the week, translated that into a CAD model. Tomorrow and Sunday I hope to haul ass and get real world results.

Currently my wife is travelling for work so this project serves to keep me occupied and otherwise out of trouble. She issued me the challenge to have it finished before she returns so that is motivating my timeline. Unfortunately, she is also the photographer in the family so readers will have to bear with me as I take point-and-shoot style photos with her bad-ass camera.

Before!

I also picked up a mitre saw as seen in the foreground. I am mentally amortizing it over the next few projects like laying new hardwood flooring so it won't hit the books fully for this keezer when I tally expenses.

My mental image included blackboard slate so I could use chalk to mark what was new on tap. Unfortunately black slate seems hard to find in Carson so I went with the grey tiles you see above. I picked up some ebony stain to darken them to black but I am on the fence about using it now. The natural stone look is growing on me...

Here lies the challenge. A standard Corny keg is too tall to sit on the compressor bump so I will need to build a collar to increase the height of my freezer. I also don't want to cop out and just put the tap handles through this collar like many keezer projects seen online. This keezer is going to be classy!

This is the best translation I can do of the picture I have in my head to what I want the keezer to look like. The three holes up top are where the taps will be, the slate may or may not turn black. Having a computer model does help to work out some of the details.

Tonight I glued the first pieces together. Tomorrow I will mount the miter saw on a piece of plywood so I can use it on my sawhorses safely. To quote Kramer, "Giddy-up!"