Mojotex

We made our first cooler using exterior grade decking plywood and foam insulation. Webuilt the frame out of 2x6, pressure treated pine. The foam panels were cut to fit on the 24" center 2x6 studs.We lined the inside walls and roof with what I call "shower stall/bathroom" plastic paneling. Itcleans up easily. Our cooleris essentially a box 8'x12' box that is 8' tall. We use an inexpensive 8000 BTU, 240 ac AC as the cooling unit. We bought 1rather narrow chromed steel shelf rack for one side for quartered meat , and built a hanging rackfrom steel pipe for hanging field dressed deer on the other.The floor is concrete with a center drain hole leading into a 3" PVC pipe that extends past the foundation about 10'.Be sure to use a drain grate of some sort. We did noit and had rats nesting in the cooler during the off season. We fixed that pronto. The door is made the same as the walls. We used a sort of soft seal like material similar to auto door seal rubber for the door seal. The unit runs basically at the lowest setting.We installed a thermostat control on the unit that is set at 34F with a band with of about +/- 2F.We have a good thermometer stuck through the wall with the sensor unit inside the refridgerated space. Thiskeeps us aprised of the interior temp witout requiring us to open the door. Here this far south the temperatures in the "fall" canrun around 90F or better. At first the unit could not hold the temp low enough for safe 2-3 day storage (40F) during hot weather. We decided to try enclosing thecooler box inside a tin shed. That did the trick.Even when it iswarm the cooler stays right at 36F max. This project was a lot of work and a good deal of expense. I am not sure it has been worth the effort. Most folks stay only 1-2-3 days in camp and either take their deer 40 mi. to a processor, or skin --- quarter and ice down in their ice chest.There are very seldomm more than 3-4 deer in the cooler. I use it only during very hot weather when ice melt is rapid.If I had to do over again, I would not !!