BeerBorg

Since I had built my keezer, I've been using the stock black handles that came with my Perlicks - while this worked fine, I had to use a whiteboard on the side of the keezer to list the beers on tap for my guests. One day, I was browsing Ebay for tap handles (damn, the custom ones are expensive!) when I saw an old Stroh's tap handle (regular and light are both the same shape):



A light bulb went off - I ordered three of those for about $35 total with shipping, got a can of Krylon Chalkboard Paint from Michaels (with a 50% off coupon), and after some masking tape and spraying, I had 3 custom chalkboard handles for my keezer!!! This should also work with other handles that have a flat area that can be painted.

Now, I didn't think this completely through, and the handles are too big for the tower, but I made them work by turning them different directions. You can still read them just fine, and if I ever build that coffin keezer, they will work great.



And a bit closer:



BTW, the drip trays are magnetic, and I can position them any way I want to fit the tower... Repurposed coffee service 4-inch trays with flat rare earth magnets glued to the bottom if anyone is curious.

Nice, very nice! Great looking, definitely priced right and functional.

Nice!

Agreed, that's a great idea. I had one custom tap handle gifted to me by co-workers and I'm still noodling on what to do with the second one. Right now, it's also the standard black handle.

They look great! Awesome idea and I had no idea there was such a thing as chalkboard paint.

Those look great Russki.

Does the round part at the top that you used the chalkboard paint unscrew from the turned stems (I'm seeing a brass cap at the top)?

If so and you don't like that they are turned sideways to fit I'm think if you could find a couple more on the cheap you could add an additional stem section to change up the heights and they could all face front.

Brewbirds wrote:Those look great Russki.

Does the round part at the top that you used the chalkboard paint unscrew from the turned stems (I'm seeing a brass cap at the top)?

If so and you don't like that they are turned sideways to fit I'm think if you could find a couple more on the cheap you could add an additional stem section to change up the heights and they could all face front.

The brass pieces do unscrew from the wooden parts, but the rest is solid and doesn't come apart. I don't mind that they are sideways - the chalkboard parts are on both sides of the handle, and are easily readable. Maybe if I had thought about the spacing, I would have picked slimmer handles to paint - Ebay has tons of options!

Way cool!

russki wrote:

Sweet! I'll take a pour off the one in the middle please.

Nice, very nice!

Those are great!

This has inspired me to order a blank handle and throw my logo on it. Right now I'm looking at this one but we'll see if eBay plays nice. The goal is to pick one up cheap and then simply print my logo in high quality and stick it on. I'll use reuseable labels in case I want to swap out what is on there.

I'll keep things posted if I actually pull the trigger.