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Drilling holes in a new freezer

skipe99

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A friend of mine that brews beer ordered supplies for me to build a kegerator.  instead of the picnic taps, however, he ordered a nice two-tap Tower Krome.  It is my understanding that the only way to build a keezer is to drill through the lid and the side.  There are steps to identify where the coils are and as long as you dont drill through a coil you should be OK.  There is apparently a thin sheet metal piece, but with the right drill bit you should be able to drill through.

Is this the only way to do this? I dont believe a collar would work unless you maybe insulated and created a wooden lid and discarded the original lid? 

I would love to see a video of someone drilling through a freezer but everyone uses the collar method and I already have this tower in hand.
 
Been thinking about this. I got nothing but time on this project so what if I drilled one hole in the top of the freezer for the Tower.  The I added a collar even though its going to be a tower.  So I have both the collar, which could hold the fan and give me the ability to run the temperature control and fan wires out through the collar so I do not have to drill another hole in the side of the freezer.  this also gives me a "tool belt" as someone put it so that I can run future hoses in the future and make changes easier.  Does anyone see a problem with this idea?
 
I waiting to hear some good answers to this question.  I watched some good stuff on youtube,..check those out is the only advice I could possibly give.
 
I have not build one yet, future DIY. Most people that have build one remove the lid make a wood frame out of 2-8 2-10 to increase the depth of the freezer. Install the lid and drill holes for taps and lines threw the wood. The lid should not be to hard  to drill a hole threw with a metal drill bit.
 
I would recommend a collar for a top loading freezer, but not the tower. Simply, you need a lot of tubing to be able to open the lid, and the tower will not let you open the lid completely. It'll hit the wall.

Save the tower for a mini fridge.
 
My first go at converting a chest freezer into a keg fridge with a Johnson controller ended with my cutting one of the cooling lines, even though I really thought the spot where I was drilling was safe.  The fine folks at the transfer station required that I pay a fee to dispose the thing even though the gas was all gone. Whatever.

For my next go I built a wooden collar.  I removed the original lid that fastened to the back of the chest freezer, and with some difficulty was able to fasten it to the collar and freezer. Not the most elegant setup, but it works.
 
Here's a link to a freezer conversion tutorial. Note that you may want to use wider lumber to allow a keg to sit on top of the compressor.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2012/05/how-to-build-a-keezer-kegerator-freezer/
 
if you are going to use the tower put the tower more toward the front of the keezer. that will make it easier to keep it from hitting the wall when you open the top.

remember: no matter where you install the tower you will need extra tubing!

alternate option: see if the taps on the tower are rotatable. if you CAN rotate them put it on a side (or on the front) as a funky draft tower.

otherwise it is best to try and get your friend to return the tower in exchange for 1-4 shanks and taps (obviously there will be an upcharge).
 
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