Stash It - 3

The first thing you are going to need to do is to disconnect the compressor unit. You are either going to have the freon removed or be very careful working with the unit. A number of years ago, I had a freon line rupture while I was working on it and happened to breathe in some of the fumes. I thought I was going to die. Until a couple of years ago it was legal to just drain the freon out yourself. Now it is illegal, you need to get someone who has a unit to recapture the freon. I will leave it up to you as to, if or how you are going to get the freon removed. those that choose not to get the freon removed will need to disconnect all of the electric lines going to the compressor. Save the plug-in cord as you are going to need it. Yes, it will be plugged in just like a working refrigerator. You will also want to leave the cooling coils on the back of the unit to keep it authentic looking. So, if you have removed the compressor, just cut the line to the coils and leave the coils in place. You can take it off for working on the unit but you should replace it. The electric cord will be used to power a ten watt light. This is to keep the humidity down in the unit and deep anything from rusting. If you are using a freezer that does not have a socket in it for a light bulb, you should install one. You can put a switch inside the unit to turn it off and on, if you do not think you need it all of the time. The only other thing that you need to do, is to drill some holes to ventilate the inside. Otherwise you will wind up with that musty, closed refrigerator smell in it. You need to drill about for or six holes across the top of the back wall and the same amount across the bottom of the back wall. I normally use about a three-eighths inch drill bit and drill four holes each, top and bottom. I like to drill my holes from the inside and deep them so that the coils hide them from the outside. You can see why I suggest getting rid of the freon. It is easy for the drill to poke a hole in a coil. Then you get rid of the freon in a way that is not pleasant or legal. You can cut some one inch squares of old aluminum screen and super glue one over each hole to deep insects and small rodents out of the unit.

Now you are ready to build the inside of the unit to hold whatever you are going to keep there. For rifles, I just glue a one by two to the back of the unit. I notch it to accept several gun barrels before gluing it in. If you want to deep a lot of guns in one unit, you can notch and glue a short one by two on each side also. This will usually add about four guns to the capacity. The one by two will have to be glued by the edge, so that it sticks out the two inch way. You might not trust the glue. In that case screw a couple of small angle brackets to the back of the unit, just under the one by two. You can also pad the slots with felt or tape. All you need to finish the inside is to glue a piece of carpet to the bottom of the inside to keep the guns from sliding. Now you will need to install some locks. I prefer using the small cylinder locks. This is the type used by companies when they install locks on their freezers. Yours may already have one on it. If not, you can usually go to a junk dealer that deals in junk appliances and pick them up for almost nothing. That is a good idea, if you can find any with keys. New ones are only a couple of bucks each, so you just might want to go that route. I like to but two locks on the large doors, one near the top and one near the bottom. On a two door refrigerator, I put a third one on the freezer door. Before installing these locks, I take them apart and change the pins around so that one key will open all of the locks. These locks are fairly simple and anyone with a little mechanical knowledge should not have any trouble with it. One unit that I helped on, the owner put two padlocks on the main door and a cylinder lock on the freezer door. We screwed one of the hinged tongues to the center of the inside top of the door. We put it in such a position that the tongue stuck into the freezer. The other one was screwed to the bottom center of the door, so the tongue would go under the unit, into the area where the drain pan should be. We put catches in the freezer and under the unit. We then installed a cylinder lock in the freezer door. To open the main door you had to unlock the freezer door and remove the kick plate from the bottom. To my way of thinking, this made it to inconvenient. You also needed two keys, one for the upper door and one for the two padlocks. However, it is a feasible and safe solution. I gave this example to show that solutions are only limited by your creativity.

Until next time "SURVIVE"

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