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This past weekend I put the finishing touches on the tap portion Kegged Beer Cooler (Kegerator) by finishing off the drip tray. It was built using a 14″ wide stainless steel drywall mud tray that has been caulked with RTV silicone. I’d originally attempted to hang it using hard drive magnets, but as can be seen here this didn’t look as nice as I’d hoped, and the magnets sitting off of the wooden support blocks made it a bit unstable.
This past weekend I cut some new blocks out of oak (picture), stained and sealed them to match the collar, drilled holes in them so epoxy could penetrate nicely (picture), then epoxied 24 square (1/4″ x 1/4″ x 1/8″) neodymium magnets on the back of each (picture). These blocks were then epoxied to the metal tray, and they now hold the drip tray nicely under the taps. As expected the magnets are quite strong, so spaced evenly along the block the tray is held on with considerable force. I imagine I could fill it with liquid and it wouldn’t budge.
This isn’t a particularly fancy design, but at a total of ~$30 I’m quite happy with how it came out. It serves the need of collecting drips, is easy to remove for cleaning, and looks pretty good.