While I was setting up my brewing area, I bought an old fridge to act as part of the temperature control rig. I also had another old fridge that I used to store beers and other stuff in. As these things often happen, I discovered that the second old fridge was actually a better fit for my fermenting vessel than the new one, and so swapped over how I used them. The only problem was that I had thrown out all the shelves for the fridge that I was now going to use to store beer.
No problem: here’s something that I can build, I thought. And that let to this very short but entertaining project. While it was pretty straightforward, there were a few issues that I needed to be mindful of – firstly, the fridge had a ‘hump’ at the back where the compressor was, which was rounded over, which meant that it was not simply a matter of knocking up some rectilinear shelves.
Another issue was finding the right lengths of wood – I didn’t have a suitable size to make the top of the shelf a single piece – instead, I needed to combine two pieces lengthwise, which I was a bit wary about. I fixed that by using a bracing piece along the edge – but that meant that the whole shelf needed to be a bit higher in order to accommodate the bracing piece.
I also wanted to try out some pocket holes using the Kreg jig, but in the end I decided against it. Instead, I simply glued and clamped the parts which seemed to work reasonably well. I ended up with this set up (below).
Following the gluing and camping, I spray painted it white and put it in the fridge – where it fit reasonably well. For the next version, I might build a second, stackable, set of shelves.
Done.