You can make a wooden barrel with your own hands quite easily. Such products are usually used for storing bulk products, pickling vegetables and storing water in reserve. A barrel may be needed on the site, in the pantry or in the bath. Such a design, if you plan to make it yourself, should be strong, durable and reliable. It should not let water through and rot.
But before starting work, it is important to ask what is required for this, what technology will be used. If you feel determined and have skills in woodworking, then you can try to realize the idea of making a barrel, although this craft is quite difficult. There are few such masters today, but there are only a few high-class ones. This is evidenced by the fact that there are few cooperage products on the market. If they can be found, then the price or quality may not please you.
Preparation of tools
Before you make a wooden barrel with your own hands, you must equip the workplace and prepare the entirenecessary tool. You will need improvised materials and appropriate devices. You will need the usual carpentry kit, as well as special cooperage equipment. Other accessories to highlight:
- carpentry workbench;
- joiner;
- edge planer;
- staple;
- plow;
- device for tightening rivets;
- patterns;
- templates;
- wood or metal clips;
- tuesday;
- cooper's brace.
As for the carpentry workbench, it must be specially equipped for cooper's work. The jointer should be long, you will also need a circular humpback planer. You must take care of a special device for the edges of the boards (the product will be assembled from the latter). You will need to tighten the rivets in the process, so you will need a tool for this. They can serve as a frame machine, a pole gate or a chain tie. Patterns and templates you can make yourself.
The island of the barrel you perform with wooden or metal clamps. To cut the morning groove, you must prepare the morning groove into which the bottom of the barrel will be inserted. The preload for the hoop is the heels, which can be wooden, metal or combined. Before making a wooden barrel with your own hands, you should take into account that usually coopers make tools and devices on their own, ensuring that the handles fit into the master’s palms and fit well in the hand, likepoured. Workbenches and benches are usually adjusted to height.
What you need to know to make products
A distinctive feature of such products is that they are made using wooden planks, which are called rivets. The dimensions and shape of the product will be determined by the configuration of the boards, which are pre-made by the craftsman. Consumer characteristics of the container will depend on the type of wood used. In this regard, the master is not enough just to be able to use the instrument. He must feel the "soul" of the tree and be familiar with the property of wood, which is used to make household items. So, before you make a wooden barrel with your own hands, you must consider what exactly will be stored in it. If it is honey, then oak cannot be used here, because the honey will darken and acquire an unusual aroma. But such barrels are simply indispensable for wine and other spirits, because such wood will only give new aromas and unique flavors.
Another component of cooperage products is a hoop that holds the elements and pulls them together. Thanks to this, the barrels do not leak. Hoops are usually made of wood or metal. In the latter case, it can be assumed that the hoop will turn out to be stronger, and there will be less trouble with it than with a wooden one. But some masters have a different opinion and make beautiful products using wooden hoops.
Details and instructions for making
If youIf you think that the task of becoming an amateur cooper is too difficult, then you can first study the technology in more detail, and only after that you can begin to make your dream a reality. To begin with, you must choose the type of product that will come out from under your hands for the first time. For example, among other types of skeleton, one can distinguish:
- conical;
- cylindrical;
- parabolic.
The shape of the product will be determined by the configuration of the rivets that will form the basis. With the complication of the form, it will be less easy to make the treasured wooden barrel. You will have to choose the type of buttons, which are grooved, straight grooved frets and rectangles. The former have the shape of a quadrilateral, the long sides of which have the form of parabolic curves. Such elements are used in the manufacture of dishes with convex sides. Rivets of this type are the most difficult to manufacture, which is a special snag. If the container is based on a cylinder, then the planks should be rectangular. Making them is simple, but connecting with hoops will be difficult. As the wood dries out, the hoops will not hold the rivets well, so cylindrical products are almost never found.
If you want to make a cedar barrel from straight grooved frets, then the elements should look like an elongated trapezoid. At the base of the skeleton will be a truncated cone. When stuffing the hoop onto a wide surface of the container, you can achieve a strong contraction of the rivets. In this case, it will be possible to get a tub, rollers or jugs. If barrel making in your practice is the firstexperiment, it is best to make a small tub called a barrel.
Performing the pickle tub
The wooden barrel for s alting is the simplest product with a conical core. The process of its creation will consist of three stages. At the first, it is necessary to complete the blanks, or rather, the components. Next, the structure is assembled and finished. At the first stage, you can prepare rivets. The durability and reliability of the barrel will depend on how carefully you approach this stage.
The most suitable are blanks that are made with an ax from logs and logs. Only the lower part of the trunks of old trees is suitable for this. If you want to get durable products, then it is better to choose oak wood, but such logs split quite easily in the radial direction.
The process of making staves from different trees is almost the same. You can punch out the workpiece in a single-row and two-row method. The first is suitable for splitting thin logs, while the second is suitable for massive decks.
Making riveting from logs
If you are thinking about how to make a wooden barrel, you should ask how to gouge out the staves. To do this, the ridge is split into two parts so that the split line falls through the center. The chopping block is split in half to make quarters. They are split into two parts to make octagonal pieces.
If you have a thin block of wood, thenhis rant ends there. The eighth part will act as a rough blank for riveting. This process is called single-row punching. When making a wooden barrel of 200 liters, you may notice that the ridge is quite thick. In this case, a two-row punch can be carried out. To do this, each octagon is split in half so that the line runs along the annual ring. The logs that can be obtained are called gnatinniks. They are split in the radial direction. This will allow you to get blanks from a smaller gnathinnik.
Each such blank is processed, for this, the wedge-shaped protrusions should be cut off, working from the side of the core. Billets after sapwood are sent to dry. It takes at least three months outdoors.
Making staves
When making an oak wooden barrel, in the next step you will need to perform riveting. To do this, a template and a pattern are made; in this case, it is necessary to act taking into account the shape and dimensions of a particular product. First, you will markup, as well as rough processing of riveted blanks. The outer surface is somewhat rounded, while the edges are ground with an ax. Then you can start finishing using a planer. The template will allow you to control the process.
With the humpback rake you can cut the inside. The ax will allow you to cut narrow edges. The accuracy can be checked by templates. Surfaces are leveled with a jointer.
When making a cedar barrel, you will need to decide onthe number of rivets. To do this, find the perimeter of the tub. To do this, the diameter is multiplied by 3, 14. The resulting value will be the sum of the widths of all elements. In order not to be engaged in measuring the width of the parts, a line segment can be set aside on a flat surface, which will make up the largest perimeter of the barrel. Finished rivets should be placed across the line until it ends.
Making a metal hoop
You will have to deal not only with wood, but also with metal, which will tighten the product. The sheet will form the basis of metal hoops. However, it is most simple to make hoops from hot-rolled steel strip. To do this, it is necessary to determine the perimeter of the tub in the place where the hoop will be located. Double the bandwidth is added to this value. With a hammer, you can bend the strip into a ring, overlapping the ends of the strip.
To install steel rivets, it is necessary to drill or punch two holes, the diameter of which will be about 5 mm. From the inside, one edge of the hoop should be flared with hammer blows. To make a wooden barrel with your own hands at home, you will need two hoops that will correspond to the perimeters of the lower and upper parts.
Building the skeleton
The rivets that you will pull together with hoops will form the skeleton of the barrel. It must be assembled in the following way. Support rivets must be attached to the small hoop at approximately the same distance, which will allowinstall the structure vertically. Frets are inserted alternately, while you can fill the sector between the support rivets. Around the entire perimeter of the small hoop, the space is gradually filled.
With the help of a hammer and a heel, the hoop should be besieged so that the parts close. A hoop is put on the island, then the heel should be upset. Along the line, you need to saw off the ends of the skeleton. Inside, irregularities are removed with a scraper. With the help of a humpback planer, the ends are planed.
Working on the bottom
If you are faced with the question of how to assemble a wooden barrel, then you must install the bottom of the tub. The fewer joints it has, the higher its reliability. For this part of the structure, the widest thick workpieces are selected. The edges of the boards must be cut off. They are temporarily rallied at the workbench. In order to determine the radius, the legs of the compass are installed in the groove. The compass solution should be selected by sampling. This will divide the perimeter into 6 parts. A circle is drawn on the rivets with a compass solution. Within the circle, you need to make marks in those places where the studs are installed. On the last plank they fit tightly.
The bottom must be planed on both sides. A circle of the same radius is drawn from the central part. You can cut out the bottom with a saw, leaving a reserve space outside the circle. Both sides must be chamfered with a straight plow so that the thickness of the wood remains equal to the width of the chime. The hoop for the barrel is knocked down with a heel, then you can loosen the fastening of the rivets. The bottom is inserted into the emphasis. The tub is turned upside down, which will allow to besiegebig hoop.
The lid for a wooden barrel is a simple part of the design. It is made according to the principle of the bottom. Before starting work, you should take care of what riveting will be made of. As an experiment, a product made of oak boards can act. But in this case, the construction will last less than that made of chipped frets. Boards for button blanks must be straight-grained, otherwise the walls will crack.
Frets will have a complex configuration. Each in the middle should be thinner than at the ends. The outer surface will be convex, and the inner - grooved. The side edges should look like gentle parabolas. This suggests that it is quite difficult to perform barrel frets and more difficult than barrel frets.
Before you make a barrel with your own hands, the drawings must be prepared and considered. From them you can find out what main components the product will have. So, for the manufacture of rivets, you can use the following technology. Rivets can be carved with an ax using a semicircular blade. This will give the shape of a prism. The middle part should decrease by about 20%. The outer plate is planed with a planer. Next, the edges should be planed.
In conclusion
Having considered the types of wooden barrels before starting work, you can understand what technology to use. If you are just starting to try your hand at cooperage, then you should not immediately take on a barrel of complex configuration. The simplest will suffice.
For a start, you can practice inproduction of tubs for indoor plants. Such products also look great in the form of flower beds, which are used for landscape design. But if you are making a barrel for storing water, then before starting its operation, you need to check the design for leaks. Only then can the barrel be used to make pickles.
In general, initially you need to choose the right wood. This is extremely important for the case when it is planned to store food inside. So, for example, an oak barrel is not suitable for water. Whereas such a product is the best for alcoholic beverages, which, when interacting with this type of wood, will only become better in taste.
Production from boards is also acceptable. This method is great for when you are just trying your hand at cooperage.
