Homemade cooler

[hackberry jake]

My brothers birthday is coming up and I decided to build a cooler out of an old stainless steel tank I got from work, some blue board insulation from the box store, and some cedar. My mom texted me Friday and told me we were having his party Saturday so I put a rush on the cooler and didn't get any good finished pics. I will post them once I get him to send them to me. But here is a couple pics I did take while building.


 


 
The foam board was 3/4" thick and I used three layers on the bottom, and two layers on the rest. The board had an r-value of 4 so I figured an average value of 8 with the board and I estimated 15/16 cedar to have an r-value of about 1 so I figure it has a r-value around 9. I looked up the average r-value of storebought coolers and they are from 2.5-6 so I think it'll work fairly well. The tank is 24" long, 18" tall, and 16" wide. giving it 4 cubic feet. Thats a lot of cold beverages!

[WDH]

You are always so creative. 

[woodweasel]

 I love that erc ;D ;D Woodweasel

[Axe Handle Hound]

I'll be interested to hear how this works out for you.  I've thought for years of doing the same thing, but on a larger scale for our pig roasts.  It's hard to get anything larger than an 80 pound pig in our cooler and sometimes that's just not enough pork.  Rather than limit guests I considered building a big cooler like you did with an insulated foil layer.  Please do post how it worked out for you.   

[petefrom bearswamp]

I have built 2 coolers, both with foam board insulation.
The smaller one is sized to hold 2 24 can cases of beer or other stuff plus ice.
Used luan plywood and a pine frame and 2" blue board on this one.
The only drawback is that over the years it has started to leak water from the melting ice.
The big baby I built to haul Elk back from Colorado and is 4' wide by 3 ' tall by 5' long.
3/8" plywood and 1" foil faced foam.
This one worked good with 1 elk (quartered) and dry ice.
I don't use it anymore as I take a small freezer and process the meat on site.
building time was about 5 hours.
Sorry no pics.
Pete