I did my best to document each step of the build and will attempt to describe them here with pictures and with any little tidbits of knowledge I discovered along the way to hopefully help anyone reading this blog who wants to attempt this project in the future.
Let's begin with all of the materials, shown here:
These are the three kegs before being converted. The box contains all the weldless valves and thermometers that I described in my first post, as well as some random tools that I took to school with me.
I arrived at school and brought everything in. The first thing I did was mark out my cut on the top of each keg. I used the star design that is on the top of the kegs as a guide and just connected the points to form a circle. I didn't worry about it being perfect because I knew I was going to grind it down anyways so I could grind out any imperfections then to try to get it as close to a perfect circle as possible. But really, as long as there is a hole in the top of the keg, whether it is perfectly circular or not does not really matter.
Once I had each keg marked, I set up my plasma cutter. Here is everything all set up:
I should have taken the picture before I made the cut but oh well. Here you can see the plasma cutter all hooked up with my awesome welding mask on top of it (thanks mom!). I have some very limited experience with plasma cutting so I was a little nervous about getting these to come out right. Here I am cutting away:
It turned out to be way easier than I expected. By resting my right hand in the center of the keg, I was able to make a really smooth circular cut. I did one segment at a time and then rotated the keg after each cut so I could stay in the same position and keep everything steady. After making all the cuts, I ground them down with a grinding wheel and then smoothed them out with a wire wheel. The wire wheel did a great job at finishing up the edges so they are not sharp at all. Here is what the completed cut, all ground down and smoothed out, looks like:
As you can see it is not a perfect circle. But it is pretty darn close! Especially for free-handing it. I was very satisfied with the end result.
Okay now is when things started to take a turn for the worse. Now that I had the tops off, all that was left was to drill two holes in each keg so that I could install the ball valve and the thermometer. To accomplish this task, I purchased a unibit (or step bit). These little buggers are pretty expensive if you want to purchase locally. So I found a cheap one on Amazon. It had really good reviews, including from homebrewers, so I thought it would be alright. It made one hole and completely crapped out on the second one. I will say that the fault was partly mine for not using any cutting oil, which I forgot. But even with oil, I couldn't see this thing lasting long enough to make six holes. $12.50 down the drain. Oh well.
Defeated but not ready to surrender, I packed the kegs and supplies back into my car and headed to Wal-Mart, initially looking to purchase another unibit. They did not have any. But what they did have was these hole saws:
I had to buy the set because they didn't sell the 1" saw individually. At $35, it was a little pricey. But a new unibit would have been that much or more so it wasn't really any different. I also picked up some cutting oil. These hole saws were amazing. I definitely recommend them over a unibit. With a little bit of cutting oil and some even pressure on the drill, they cut right through in no time. I was very impressed. I was able to cut all six holes with no difficulties. And the saw is still sharp!
After cutting the hole, I attempted a dry fit with the valve and thermometer and discovered the hole was just a little too small. Even though the instructions called for a 1" hole, the bulkhead was just a tad bit larger than this. I got out my rotary tool and ground the hole just a little bit and this was enough do make the bulkhead fit through. Also, this allowed me to clean up the edges of the holes which were pretty ragged from the saw.
Now the time had finally come to install the valves and thermometers. First, I took the kegs inside and gave them a good cleaning to clear out all of the metal shavings and oil. After a good scrub, I took them back out to the garage for the final step.
The ball valves and the thermometers went in really easy. All of the fittings come from MoreBeer with teflon tape but I took this off and put on my own. I tightened them down as tight as I could get them. And here is the finished project:
Ta da! I am very happy with these results and I can't wait to start using these things. Though it was a lot of work and extremely frustrating at times, this was a very fun build. Looking forward to piecing this thing together! Stay tuned!
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