How to Build a Kegerator

The Brief!

• Update my Kegerator 1.0 *upright fridge which died!*
• Hide the Co2 Bottle
• Hide the Chest Freezer
• Must be mobile
• Have a chiller for glass's/bottle beer
• The wife must allow it in the house so it must match the house
• have built before my 30th
• Must have top mount font

Tools Used

• Me
• Drill
• Table Saw
• Circular Saw
• Jigsaw
• Wood Glue
• Sheets of 18mm MDF (I think)
• Sheets of 3m MDF (I think)
• Hole Saw
• Clamps

Pre-Design the kegerator

Did a bucketload of googling to find what other people are doing to see any cool designs.

I found some cool designs but in the end decided to do my own.

Designing the kegerator

I thought I'd better design it before I go out and start whacking some wood and stuff together.

From the brief i had a think about what I could do, got all the dimensions of the gear and modeled them up so not to miss anything.

(I had more pictures but my computer died and it didn't save them all)

 

 

The Build

I have no experience with building a kegerator i'm just doing what I think should be done and without the correct tools (at the start until I borrowed some)

First I get the base and make sure this is strong and square (so I thought)

Put a guard around the front and side to hole the chest freezer on the base and also to give me more area to fix the rest of the frame to it.



Im testing the size of the chest freezer to my design, luckily it fits perfect.

At this point im getting worried that this might actually work.

Once I've got most of the frame finished I put the chest freezer back in to see how its going.

WOAH, still fits (with some help) looking more like a kegerator every day.

I had a bright idea of having an insulated box where I could recirculate the freezer air in so I can have a easy access chiller box so I can put beers/glasses in there. I've built it once and it didn't work to great due to having to much flow and to many gaps in the foam. (currently not in use. Kegeration 2.1 ver)

Mounting the Gas line, I thought "bugger it" i'll get the drill and see what happens.

In the end after some colourful language and nearly a hole in the finger I got the line in.

The hole there is there the outlet for the chiller box and the PVC elbow is the return so it directs the returned hotter air away from where the air is coming in (thats the idea anyway)

Mounting the outer panels. Just using MDF not the greatest material for a mobile kegerator but hey I didn't know that at the time.

The two holes are Computer fans that pull out the hot air from the freezer compressor/motor so it doesn't blow up.

Prime the wood for the paint. I put three light coats of primer on the wood on ALL ends so the MDF doesn't soak up any liquid.

Finishing off the lid and putting the driptray and font on to test the height since the castors (wheels) were alot higher than I thought.

Went into the paint shop with my wife so she can have input on the final colours, In the end I took a back seat to my wife and the lady at the shop finding solutions for me. This worked out great! because I had no idea what was going on. cheers Rachel! and lady from the shop.

 

Final coat and put it all together and put it in the house. By the time i got to doing the final coat it was the middle of winter and i got lots of drips due to the stain not drying in time, they can be fixed later on but at the moment it looks fine.

You be the judge if it matches I think it does.

I have a kegerator that looks good inside so that means no more garage beers.

 

 

Post Build thoughts

• Building a kegerator takes awhile
• MDF not the best choice of wood, When i move this to my sisters house it chipped very easy.
• Designing before hand is a very good idea
• Designing so everything just fits isn't great when trying to do simple things, i.e. turn gas on and off.
• Listen to the wife on colour choice.
• Get the right tools, makes it a lot easier.

My original kegerator build thread