Hi All,
I just joined this forum after seeing this thread regarding building a custom cooler. This would be so cool if I can learn from this thread how to build these. I am starting a business building high end Teardrop Trailers and have been searching too much trying to find the ideal cooler to include with my trailers. All the coolers like Yeti albeit good quality are very inefficient in their use of space. I would really like to come up with a rectangular shape that would have a wood exterior and waterproof liner inside, with ss hardware and made exactly to my specs. I don't have a problem building a high quality wood outer shell and installing nice stainless steel hardware. I am pretty sure I can find someone to inject the closed cell foam too. I am mostly unsure how to get the interior liner and lid covers. I might be able to have a local plastic shop fabricate those pieces after working out the details. I also need the gasket material that seems so common in the high end coolers.
Hopefully this gets back to you guys that started this topic a couple years ago.
I will be anxious to hear any feed back.
Kevin
if your teardrop design has the back hatch / 'chuck wagon' layout, make the back-bottom area the cold box, with the working counter the top of two plug-style lids. Hinged at the back, like a chest freezer. Take a little bit of planning and forethought in use, but doesn't everything in a teardrop?
Simple plan is get a large HDPE-2 container to use as the inner liner. Pre-plumb a drain line at the bottom corner. Plastic water line for icemakers would work nice, bulkhead / thru-wall compressing fittings to mount it to the bottom of your liner. Set it in your exterior shell on small supports underneath, glued to keep it in place. Run the line to a petcock or spigot. Then use that expanding insulation used in residential homes / roofs. Pour it in, slosh it around under the HDPE liner, let it work in place until the underside fills and expands into the sides. Then pour the sides, trim the extruded excess off the top.
The foam kits are pretty expensive, $250-300. I don't know if it is possible to just partially use one. The polyurethane 'gap filler' foam in a can expands about 14 to 1. There's ~7.5gal to a cubic foot. Volume of outer shell in cubic inches minus volume of inner shell in cubic inches. About 1/2 a liquid ounce to a cubic inch. So your remaining volume in cubic inches times 2, divided by 14, divided by 12 = number of cans of spray foam.
Were it me, I'd put a much longer drain line in, have it started thru the hole in the outer shell, with the inner shell braced right at the top edge of the outer. Have my 4" depth (or however thick you are making the foam later spacers already glued / caulked and secure in the bottom of the outer shell. Couple strips of rigid foam insulation would work fine. Then I'd spray the bottom full of the foam and let it rise above the spacers. Then I'd mash the liner down in it, pulling my drain line thru and taut as I did so. Set some weight in the inside to hold it down against the foam. Set in some pre-cut wedges at the top center the inner liner. Give it a few minutes to finish expanding in the bottom, then spray the sides full, removing the spacers as the top is reached. Se viola. a home-made ice box of a custom volume, with walls as thick as you care to make them.
Companies like usplastic.com have all manner of 'food safe' and/or HDPE-2 containers and tanks. All manner of shapes and sizes. Figure the rough dimensions of your available space, who thick you want the wall foam to be (you can fudge it thinner on the side facing the interior of the trailer, or an end that isnt' near an exterior sidewall. Then find a suitable container to use as the inner liner.
There are also a wide variety of insulating / heat-reflective or -blocking materials in the roofing trades, which you could put between your cooler box and the outer skin or the trailer to further guard against heat from the sun, as well as ambient air temps.
Also there are rubber hose caps that are pinched shut, formed that way. Water will seep down out of them, but not cold air. If you just want it to drip drain. I'd rather have the positive control of an exterior valve, myself. Rather than making a mud puddle in my camp spot.
Fabricate your top hatches with plugs of 2" foam. Any thicker and the protruding foam gets in the way of reaching in the cooler, especially with a hinged / attached lid. Sheet styrofoam from the hardware store works fine for this. It cuts pretty easily with a turkey carving knife too. Long draw strokes, no sawing.
