COOPERING

Coopering is a trade that has been lost to time in places where it once flourished. Like many other trades during it’s time, it required the skill and effort of several years apprenticeship to perfect. It was because of the Coopering trade and others like it that our lives were made easier. It gave us the ability to efficiently store or age goods in a watertight container, and transport them with relative ease just by hand. The “Cask” was the container that made this possible.

A Cooper is a person that creates “Casks”, Casks are commonly referred to as “Barrels” but this is a misconception. The Barrel is a type of Cask and there are many different types. Seven types to be exact, all of them are distinguished by volume:

Types of Casks

There are several different parts of a cask, all of them must be to the exact measurement, or the container will not be watertight. One of the ingenious things about a Cask is how it is held together, all of it’s parts are held together by the force that is created by it’s design. This makes the container much stronger than if it where held together with glue of nails. The metal bands that hold the Cask together are forced down towards the widest part, so they tighten as they go down. By being thinner at the edges and wider in the center the Cask is held together, this would be impossible to do with a cylinder or square shaped container.

The Cask is made up of several wooden planks called “Staves”. The first part of creating a Cask is the assembly of the Staves, each Stave must be cut directly out of the tree; this is because the strongest wood that is needed for the Cask, is found in the middle part of the tree between the center and the outer layers. The process of just cutting the planks out of the tree can be very time consuming, but it is a necessary step to take if you want a good ending product. After the tree has been cut down, a section just a bit larger than the “too be Cask” is removed from the log. This section is cut into half’s down the diameter several times, until each plank is cut out. The ends are then trimmed off and the next step begins.

One by one the Cooper carves and shapes the planks into the Staves. He first clamps the plank down onto a device called a “Horse”, the Horse angles the plank upward at a 45-degree angle from the ground towards the Cooper. The Cooper then runs a concave blade along the plank until it has a hollowed out shape, after that he flips the plank and repeats this process with a convex blade, thus shaping the plank into a Stave. Some finishing touches are added to the stave to help it fit together better with the other staves. The ends are trimmed with an axe so that they taper off, and the edges of the Staves are beveled (cut to a slant) with a “Jointer” so that their edges will match up.

After the Staves are carved the assembly of the Cask takes place. The Cooper first gathers all of the staves and binds them together at one end with a shaping hoop called a “Truss Hoop”. The Cooper then “Fires” the Cask; the process of Firing can be done in several different ways but the after effect is the curved shape of the Cask, the heat helps to curve the wood. The Cask is placed over a fire or in a tub of boiling water; the Truss Hoops are then used to shape the Cask. After the wood cools, the Cooper cuts a bevel in the rims of the barrel for the “Heads” to fit into (the heads are the wooden caps on either end of the Cask). Finally the Cooper smoothes out the inside of the Cask, measures and creates the permanent bands, and hammers the bands down onto the Cask.

The finished product can be used to hold food, such as grain or corn; liquids like water or cider, and even supplies like clothing or tools. Still today the Cask is used in some places to age wine, because of the superior taste compared to other containers. But no matter how it is used, the Cask was and still is a strong container that utilized the brilliance of engineering.