Those with acrylic ice box shelves, step inside!

[waughoo]

For the upper shelf, I wanted as large a surface area as possible with a reasonably sized hole to the lower shelf for access to those items below.  Since the shelf needed to be made in two parts to fit into the box opening, I worked out a size that was quite large for the forward piece and a small piece on the aft stbd side that could be removed if needed.  These were fit trial and error in the box at the boat with the rough shaps again made using the paper templates.

[waughoo]

The upper shelves also were cut with a pattern bit in a router.  Additionally, these needed fiddles to keep items on the shelf underway.  After my experience on the lower shelf, I built a jig for locating the parts to be attached and masked off the parts being glued with the exception of the areas being mated.  This resulted in a MUCH better outcome, but it was still not as nice as I had hoped.

[waughoo]

And here is a little collection of photos showing the final product installed in the ice box.  This turned out to be a VAST improvement over the previous setup of wire rack shelves against the aft wall.  The orientation of the shelves made getting things off the shelves from the galley side an absolute bear.  This set up allows for FULL access to the lower shelf without much boat yoga and there is nothing to take out to get to the lower shelf.

I want to thank everyone who stopped in to provide, thoughts, insight and photos of their setup.  I want to give a special thanks to Bill Shreeves for the tracings of his shelves and the legwork to send them to me.  Despite my box being slightly different, these tracings made this SOOOOO much easier.  Thanks Bill.

[Stu Jackson]

Great job, Alex.  That hole in the top shelf with the fiddles is a great idea.  The way your evaporator is setup allowed you to do a lot of good things.

[waughoo]

Thanks Stu.  The evaporator location and type was a deliberate choice.  The "O" shapped evaporator units always seemed to be in the way and rarely provided the value they proported to offer.  Rather fortunately, my refrigeration setup was toast when I bought the boat so I could set it up exactly the way I wanted.

[Ron Hill]

Alex : Nice modification!!

I still have the original AB with the open freezer compartment on the aft end of the fridge.  We keep that freezer loaded on our 6 week long trips (spring & fall)!!  I have the small battery operated fan (Fridge Mate) hanging from the thermostat control to keep the air inside the fridge circulating.

A few thoughts