It's "Keezer" Time!

Now that I am retired...myself and a former co-worker who is also retired have breakfast each Friday morning to shoot the shit and stay in touch.  Besides that...it gets us out of the house and maintains a social life for us.  Matt asked me to help him with a  project he wanted to build.  He is big into beer and wanted his own beer tap set up at home.  He didn't want to buy the pre-made beer keg refrigerators that are on the market.  He searched the internet and came up with a set of plans utilizing a chest freezer..hence the name "Keezer"  Keg freezer I imagine.  Anway...the project necessitated that the lid be removed...a riser collar be installed on the cabinet of the freezer and then reattach the lid.  The collar would allow the placement of beer taps without drilling holes into the actual chest.  I did do that and I free handed box joints on the collar corners.  A mistake in measuring by Matt resulted in my needing to cut the depth of the collar and losing one of the teeth of the box joints.  Still, the collar fit amazing and it looked great once attached by silicone caulk and it works well. 


He went a step further and asked me to fab up a nice hardwood top to dress it up.  I had a length of white oak sitting around the shop for quite a long time...not knowing what I would do with it since I basically work with red oak.  This project would be a great way to get a use out of it.  Kept it simple with a minor bead detail circling the perimeter of the top on the sides and applied three or four coats of full strength polyurethane and then a couple more thinned coats for a good application that smoothed out in the cooler shop and left no brush marks due to a slow settling in of the finish.  The difficulty level of this project was minimal...but still, it made the Keezer look really nice and will be proudly used for years.