Build A Mobile Bar - BaR2D2

Step 8 Building the Beer Turntable

The beer turntable holds 15 beers and rotates them into position over the beer elevator for dispensing upon command from the remote control.

3/4 inch plywood is used for the base. Cut a square about 2 foot square and cut and contact cement a piece of white 1/8 inch Sintra plastic to the top of it. Sintra is a brand name of expanded pvc sheet. This comes in 4 x 8 sheets in almost any color you could want and is usually about $30/sheet from any plastic supplier.

Using the earlier router table setup, mount the piece and cut it into a 16 inch circle.

Next, cut two pieces of the Sintra about 18 inches and center mount them together. Draw your beer layout as shown below. Temporarily attach a paper template (my friend drew it in Illustrator) to the pieces and start drilling the large holes using a circle cutting bit on the drill press. Once you have the 15 holes drilled, you will mount the pieces on the router table and spin them to remove the unneeded parts. This will leave you with two beer guides. I later went back and drilled some holes for the sake of looks. I also drilled five equally spaced 1/4 inch holes that mount the pieces to the base.

For the base, I used the template to drill a hole about 1.5 inches around where each beer will sit. This allows the elevator to come up through the hole, but will not allow the beer to fall through it. I cut out the extra material between the hole and the edge with a table saw to allow extra clearance for the elevator.

The base also gets five holes for bolting the two beer guides to it. Use five 1/4 inch bolts about 5 inches long. These need to be countersunk under the base to allow it to spin. I centered and mounted a 6 inch lazy susan bearing (Home Depot) to the bottom of it.

To drive the turntable, I used one of the 12 volt, 15 rpm gear motors I earlier purchased from ebay. I used 2 inch x 2 inch steel angle to make a simple motor mount. I used a hole saw to cutout a 3 inch circle (wheel) that I epoxied to the motor shaft. Grip tape was applied for the outer tread. The motor was mounted under the floor of this level so that the wheel was allowed to protrude through a slot and contact the bottom of the turntable to rotate it.

A beer guardrail was also cut from 1/8 inch thick UHMW plastic. Mount this to the inside of the uprights to keep the beers snug.

Comments

[HuggyBear]

OMG i cant believe that you cut the "gears" by hand. I give you props, cause i would have gone straight to my work's water jet cutter.