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My Kegerator Project.

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
I've been a sporadic home brewer since the late 90's, but have never kegged. About 2 years ago my neighbors across the street upgraded their fridge and asked me if I wanted it for the garage. The price was right (free) so I said yes. I've been using it to lager for sometime now, but have never gotten around to actually using it to store/serve keg beer. I figure it's about time to change that. Ordered up some gas equipment, and I already had 2, 5 gallon kegs, but I'm still short some liquid equipment, tap handles, etc. In the mean time, I decide to spruce the old fridge up and make it worthy of the beer I'd like to serve out of it. In the hangar we have the US flag, the state, flag, and all the service flags, and I was inspired by the CO flag.



I decided to paint the upper freezer door like the flag, and I want to do the lower door with "chalkboard" paint so I can label individual tap handles, draw pictures, what ever, but before I tackled the big door figured I better see how much of a project it might turn out to be, so I've started with the flag. These pictures represent my last 2 Saturdays, and last Sunday at work.

The fridge has some kind of wrinkly textured surface that I wanted to fill and make as smooth as possible. It's not in the paint but in the actual skin of the fridge itself. First, the existing paint comes off.


Cleaning:


Hysol 9309. Like bondo, but "aiplaney"




I think this shit is way to thick, way to hard to spread out, and way to hard to sand down to the level I wanted. When I do the big door I'll definitely use something runnier. Fortunately, epoxies and fillers abound in great quantities at work and something is always nearing a shelf life.



Cure faster damn you!


Sanded back down and filled in. Much smoother to the touch.



Ready for paint.


The recent merger introduced a new paint scheme, and we still have literal gallons of the old stuff sitting around, so white and dark blue are also incredibly easy to come by. This is white, I swear:



Taping on Sunday morning.


So blue.....






This afternoons progress at home:


The "C" sanded for primer



Hoping to spray red and yellow tomorrow, but it's awfully humid and cold for garage spraying, I may wait until I can get back in the paint booth at work. Progress pics to come.
 
Last edited:

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,015
Sleazattle
Just because there is a sanding and paint booth, doesn't necessarily mean it's still couldn't be set in a Kafka novel.
The fact that you work in a place with a sanding and paint booth and can make Kafka references says it all. Cool project BTW.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,015
Sleazattle
I am self aware enough to recognize the dichotomy.


Primer last night, yellow today:






Might have pulled the tape too early, left a pretty good lip on the yellow.
I hope you don't go throwing around big words like that at work. But I see you are only a B student when it comes to math.

I suck at painting. I thought you were supposed to pull the tape early to prevent the edge from breaking after it has solidified?
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
I suck at painting. I thought you were supposed to pull the tape early to prevent the edge from breaking after it has solidified?
I'm not great. I haven't really painted anything of any significant size in probably 15 years. Overall I'm pretty happy with how it's come out so far. If it was my car I'd want my money back, but since it's a used fridge that I'll be putting mediocre home brew in, It'll be fine.

Pulling tape is a little bit of an art. Too long and the edges chip, too soon and it develops the lip like I got today, though it seems to have settled back out enough I'm going to let it go the way it is.
 

kazlx

Patches O'Houlihan
Aug 7, 2006
6,985
1,957
Tustin, CA
Make sure you clear the whole thing and stripe it when you're done :)

I like painting. I hate painting outside and with spray cans.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
Taped for red. Was tempted to do it in the garage, but rain and temps in the 40's made me wait until I could bring the whole thing back into the paint booth.



Sprayed with red. Tape and paper pulled 45 minutes later.



Looks pretty good, except for the yellow. Not sure if I just didn't wait long enough or if the weather screwed me, but when I pulled the tape I got just a little bit of red on the yellow. Tried to lightly wipe it off with a paper towel and some alcohol, and the gloss totally came off, the plastic tape also did something "funny" to it. Can't really see it in this picture but when the light is right it looks absolutely awful. :hmm:
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
lightly wet sand the gloss from the whole door and re-spray a fresh gloss coat? :hmm:
Perhaps. I'm toying with the idea of clear coat anyway, so this might be my best option. It's under heat lamps in the composite room right now. Probably leave it like that until it's time to go home, then I'll see what I've got in the morning after i clean the tape gunk off.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
Tried to capture the yellow with the phone camera, kind of doesn't do justice to how bad it looked.


So back to the sanding booth we go. Sanding, sanding, and more sanding.




Turns out the model paints I used for the red and yellow spray awfully thin, so some touch up was necessary.




After even more sanding, back to the paint booth. Had to wait awhile since the composite shop guy was doing actual airplane stuff. :disgust1:



Sprayed with clear coat. Now we wait. Couple of bad pictures, might have got clear coat on my phone.




And, viola!


Lower door starts soon®.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,537
Riding the baggage carousel.
Lower door starts soon®.
We've been getting our ass kicked at work, and I'm working on another personal project, so the lower door has been on hold, until this weekend.

Pretty much same procedure as before.
Sanded down door:


Recently expired epoxy is best epoxy. Plus, this stuff is a lot thinner and easier to work with than the last stuff I used, and it dries pretty much transparent and self leveling. It did take a fairly long time to cure, probably because it's old.



Spread thin and curing.



Ready for paint. I bought two cans of chalkboard paint at Ace. Had a coupon, both cans cost something like 3 bucks with discount.



First coat. Got Windy so I had to weigh down the tarp.



Sanded and washed for second coat.



Viola!




Made me realize how bad the rest of the fridge looks and how badly I need to move the thing and clean around it. Thinking about a wood veneer or stainless, but stainless is probably more $$$$ than I'm willing to commit. Tap handles and shanks are next anyway.
 

UNHrider

Monkey
Apr 20, 2004
479
2
Epping, NH
Nice work, makes my keezer look rather pedestrian. Too bad the NH flag is rather intricate, beyond my abilities to try and paint anyway.

Which reminds me, I still need to mount my drip tray.
 

blindboxx2334

Turbo Monkey
Mar 19, 2013
1,340
101
Wets Coast
very rad! as someone who just started home brewing, kegging is super intriguing to me.

although i spent much more on my 'kit' that i pieced together than i wanted (it sucks being super anal about things). kegging will have to wait until i get another fridge, but its on the to do list. this is inspiring!