Building a Kegerator

The kegerator project was a lot of fun–mostly because I was able to use power tools to cut open a perfectly fine (brand new) refrigerator.  I started by removing the top of the fridge.  On the underneath of the plastic top, I used a razor blade to cut away a 8″ x 11″ flat surface.  I had to cut away the “fins” that rose above the plastic. You do this in order to fit a 8″ x 11″ board  inside that will serve to give support to the faucet.  The next step was the most important and most frightful step of the process: Finding the Coolant Line.  You definitely don’t want to hit the coolant line when drilling the hole, because–well bye bye new fridge, so the recommended procedure is to make a mix of 2 parts water and 1 part flour, paint it across the top of the fridge, open the door, turn the fridge on high, and wait.  You should see a horizontal line appear caused by the coolant line drying the flour-water mix faster.  I ended up waiting for 15 minutes with no results.  I decided to take a rag and remove most of what I painted on, leaving a slight film on the top.  This seemed to do the trick–in lest than a few minutes, I found the line.  Next I used blue painter’s tape and marked the location of the coolant line.  Then I measured the dead center of the top of the fridge, and whether or not it would intersect with the blue tape.  Turns out I was safe.  After finding where to drill, I taped the board to the underside of the plastic top so that it stayed in place while drilling, and screwed the top of the fridge back on.  Finally–the fun part—whhhzzzzggggrrzzzz!  I drilled a starter hole with a slightly larger drill bit than the guide drill of the hole saw (this allows for the hole saw to say in place while you are trying to drill through slippery plastic).  Next, I used the hole saw to drill through each layer, one at a time: plastic, wood, metal, and Styrofoam. It is a good idea to remove the plastic top once the drill reaches the metal top of the fridge, and then continue drilling with the  plastic top removed through the metal and Styrofoam.  Once I had my hole sawed, I placed the beer lines through the hole, and aligned my faucet (sorry for some reason I got caught up in the project from here on and stopped taking pictures).  There are four holes in the faucet base.  I used a hammer and nail to mark where the holes were, so I knew where to drill once I removed the faucet.  I drilled the four holes and then used four bolts with large washers and nuts to fasten the faucet to the top of the fridge.  The project is mostly complete.  I still need to purchase the two 5 gallon kegs, and my ball locks are in the mail.