BIERKISTE DECKEN - BEER CASE TOPPERS
Background / Motivation
One evening, while hanging out with Christoph at his place, he was talking about a cool thing he saw at a bar. In Germany, beer cases are very consistently standardized. They hold 20x 0.5l bottles, and are sturdy, robust, and reusable as all get out. As he explained to me, the bar he was at was using them as little tables, and the table part was just a sheet of wood with some fitters that placed it square in the top opening of the case.
After seeing what he was talking about, I thought this was quite the cool design! A sheet of wood, some way to fit and center it in the opening of the top, how hard could it be!? After a little chatting, I gave him my word that I could and would make a couple of them for him. Time to get it underway.
Project and Design Requirements
The design requirements were pretty easy. The top opening of a beer case is quite standard, so that made things simple. Just had to have one to measure it out, and then got my measurements in place.
The overall width and depth came out to ~398mm x ~298mm. Yes I was going full detail and specs because that's how I roll. The wall thickness of the top opening was ~14mm, but there were some maximum depth spots to take into account (aka, the pieces on the bottom to keep the topper centered couldn't be extravagantly deep). This would be worked out in the later stages of the project. But the main dimensions in place, time to get materials.
Material Selection
I had some wood laying around from previous projects I could use, but I also wanted something a little more refined. This was going to be something durable and multi-functional, but it had to look good. As with all projects, you know?
So while I was at Hornbach picking some things up for something else, I took a look at their wood supplies and found a few planks that would be perfect. The width was just a little over width, and long enough that I could get a couple boards in with a little scrap at the end. The top boards were all taken care of.
For the bottom spanners, I figured I had enough scrap laying around, I could easily piece enough together for these. And I wasn't wrong. Through a mix of some smaller softwoods, some MDF leftovers, and a few other things, I had enough pieces to cover my needs here. Time to get to work.
The Design
The design for the top was easy as pie. A rectangle. But how to keep that rectangle square on the beer case was the tricky part.
What I opted for was to have two smaller pieces span the width of the rectangle, and have the outer edges of the spanners but up against the inside walls of the beer case. This is why I wanted a precise measurement of the overall case dimensions, as I was shooting for as snug of a fit as possible - I don't want the topper to be shaking or sliding around while it's in place, but sit pretty snugly in one spot.
This required a couple design elements to this. First, a precise width of the spanner so it would span the full width of the inner walls of the case. Next, I needed to chamfer the corners of the spanner to match the max depth of the max width of the inner walls (there was slant from the max width that reduced the width, just had to cut the chamfer so the thickness of the spanner matched that max depth). Then, I had to make sure I placed the spanners in the right spot to get the snug fit on the outer walls front and back. That would prove tricky, but with a square and a lot of measuring, I figured it'd all come out ok.
Thankfully, there weren't a ton of joints in this project, just those to get the spanners to mount to the topper. Here, I opted for some biscuit joints, because I've got a biscuit joiner and those are pretty easy. For this, I just had to measure a bunch of times to make sure the cuts were in the right spot to place the spanners in the right spot. Simple enough, I think.
The Build
The Finishing Touches
The Final Product
Original Publish Date: December XXth, 2021