Do-it-yourself oak barrel. This page does not exist. Sauna Assembly Instructions

Vegetables are salted in barrels, bulk products are stored, and water is kept in reserve. They are needed in the pantry, on the site, in the bath. How to make a wooden barrel with your own hands so that it is strong, reliable, durable, does not let water through and does not rot? What tools and skills are needed for the job, what will need to be studied and taken into account? This guide will help you master a useful craftsman and even start your own tub making business.

Wooden barrel for household needs

Cooperage - how to become a master

If the mood is resolute, there are skills in woodworking, and hands grow from where they should be, why not try to realize the idea of ​​​​becoming a domestic cooper (cooper)? Bondar is a difficult craft that came from antiquity. Now there are very few masters of this business, and there are only a few high-class masters. Therefore, cooperage products are rare on the market, and if you can find them, then either the price or the quality does not please the buyer.

barrel assembly process

What tools are needed to assemble barrels

Having decided to make your first barrel, keg or tub, you need to equip workplace and stock up necessary tools, fixtures, improvised materials. In addition to the usual carpentry kit, you will need to stock up on special cooperage equipment, fixtures and tools. This:

• carpenter's workbench, equipped for cooper's work;
• cooperage long jointer, circular humpback planer;
• a device for planing the edges of the boards from which the product is assembled);
• devices for tightening rivets (frame gate, chain tie, pole gate);
• plow, skobel, skobelka;
• hand-made patterns, templates;
• metal or wooden clamps for assembling the skeleton of the barrel;
• morning time (device for cutting the morning groove into which the bottom of the product is inserted);
• heels (metal, wooden, combined), tightness for a hoop;
• cooper's brace.

Fixtures and measuring tools

It should be borne in mind that coopers make a significant part of the devices and tools on their own, “for themselves”, ensuring that the handles of the tools are held in the palm of their hand, like a glove, and the machines and workbenches were tall.

On the left is a two-handed, on the right is a one-handed morning service and how to work with it

What you need to know for the manufacture of cooperage products

Distinctive feature cooper's utensils is that it is assembled from wooden planks prepared in a special way, called staves (in other words, frets). The shape and dimensions of the product are completely determined by the configuration of the planks, which are pre-made by the cooper. And the consumer qualities of wooden containers depend on the type of wood used.

Therefore, it is not enough for a cooper just to be able to master the tools perfectly. He must feel the "soul" of the tree and know the properties of each type of wood from which he plans to make this or that household item.

Staves are the main element for the manufacture of barrels

An experienced cooper will not make an oak barrel for storing honey - when stored in it, the honey will darken and acquire an unusual aroma. But oak barrels are indispensable for aging wine and other spirits: oak wood gives them new aromas and flavors.

The second element, without which cooperage products are unthinkable, is a hoop that holds the elements, tightens them tightly, so that wooden barrels do not leak. Hoops are made of metal and wood. There is an opinion that metal hoops are stronger, and the hassle with their manufacture is much less than with wooden ones. However, some masters think differently and make the most beautiful products using wooden hoops.

Tub on wooden hoops

Main details and manufacturing principle

One might get the impression that the task of becoming an amateur cooper is too difficult, and one can only quietly dream about how to make a barrel out of wood. But if you're serious about making your dream come true, it's time to roll up your sleeves.

First of all, you need to choose the type of product that will become your firstborn. With all their diversity, there are three types: with a conical, parabolic and cylindrical core. As already mentioned, the shape of a cooperage product is completely determined by the configuration of the staves from which it is assembled - the more complex the shape, the more difficult it is to make the treasured wooden barrel.

Influence of configuration on product type

The figure above shows the types of cooperage utensils and the corresponding types of staves:

• Grooved, made in the form of a quadrilateral, the long sides of which have the form of parabolic curves. They are used in the manufacture of cooperage utensils with convex sides: barrels, barrels. Such staves are the most difficult to make, which predetermines the complexity of manufacturing barrels in general.
• The base of the tank is a cylinder. They are easy to manufacture, as they are rectangular grooved planks. It is easy to make such frets, but it is difficult to connect hoops with a constant diameter. When the wood dries out, the hoops no longer hold the rivets. Therefore, cylindrical cooperage products are practically not found.
• From straight grooved frets in the form of an elongated trapezoid, dishes are made, the skeleton of which is a truncated cone. When stuffing the hoop on a wide part of such containers, a very strong contraction of the rivets is achieved. This feature has found application in the manufacture of various tubs, tubs, jugs.

By the same principle, a mini-bath is built.

For the first experiment, it is desirable to choose the manufacture of a small tub, often called a barrel in everyday life.

How to make a garden tub for pickles

The barrel is the simplest cooper's product with a conical core. Having achieved success in the construction of the tub, it will be possible to try on how to make a more complex barrel at home. The creation process consists of three major steps:

• blank production ( constituent parts) products;
• construction assembly;
• finishing.

Tub for beginners

Self-preparation of rivets for tubs

The reliability and durability of a wooden barrel depends on how carefully the staves are prepared. The most suitable are considered to be blanks, knocked out with an ax from logs and logs of sawn wood. Only the lower part of the trunks of old trees is suitable for this.

Oak wood, most often used for the manufacture of barrels, is very durable. But oak logs (blocks) are quite easily split with an ax in the radial direction. In general, the process of harvesting staves from different trees is approximately the same. There are single-row and double-row punching methods. A single row is suitable for splitting thin logs, a double row is suitable for massive decks.

Double row punching

The procedure for knocking out staves from the ridge:

1. Split the ridge into 2 parts so that the split line passes exactly through its center.
2. Each chopping block is also split in half - you get quadruplets.
3. Split quarters into 2 parts, getting octagon. For a thin block of wood, the knockout process usually ends there. It is the eighth part that will serve as a rough blank for future riveting. This is a single row punch.
4. If the ridge is thick, make a two-row punch: split each octagon in half along the annual ring (perpendicular to the core rays). The resulting logs are called gnatinniks.
5. Split each gnathinnik in the radial direction. In this case, 1-2 riveting blanks will be obtained from a smaller gnathin and 2-5 blanks from a larger one.
6. Perform a small processing of the blanks: chop off the wedge-shaped protrusions from the side of the core and sapwood (weak young wood from the side of the bark).
7. Send blanks to dry. In the summer they need at least 3 months to dry in the open air or resort to artificial drying.

The sequence of making rivets

Making rivets from blanks

Prior to the manufacture of rivets, it is necessary to make templates and patterns in accordance with the shape and dimensions of a particular product.

To make staves for tubs or barrels, you need:

1. Make markup.
2. Perform roughing of each riveted blank: slightly round the outer surface, and mow the edges with an ax.
3. Start finishing the outer surface with a straight plow or planer, controlling the process with a template.
4. Plane the inside side with a fillet or a humpbacked staple.
5. Use an ax to cut the narrow edges of the frets, controlling the accuracy with a template.
6. Align the surface of the edges with a jointer.

To determine the required number of rivets, you need to find the largest perimeter of the tub: multiply the diameter by 3.14. This value will be equal to the sum of the widths of all elements. For simplicity, in order not to measure the width of each part (and it can vary), you can set aside a straight line segment on a flat surface equal to the largest perimeter of the barrel. Lay finished rivets across the line until it closes.

Sheet metal hoop

Production of metal hoops for the tub

The cooper has to deal with both wood and metal, because the hoops that tighten the dishes have to be made independently from a metal sheet. But it is easier to make hoops from hot-rolled steel tape. For this you need:

1. Determine the perimeter of the tub at the location of the hoop, add to it the double width of the strip.
2. Using a hammer, bend the strip into a ring, overlapping the ends of the strip. Drill or punch 2 holes with a diameter of 4-5 mm, install steel rivets.
3. From the inside, flare one edge of the hoop with hammer blows.

Skeleton Assembly Steps

To make a small barrel at home, two hoops are enough, corresponding to the perimeters of its upper and lower parts.

Stages of assembling the skeleton of the tub

Rivets-sidewalls, pulled together by hoops, form the skeleton of a barrel made of wood. The skeleton should be assembled like this:

1. Attach 3 supporting rivets to the small hoop with clamps at approximately the same distance from each other, which will allow you to install the structure vertically.
2. Alternately inserting frets, fill in the sector between the two supporting rivets, fill in the space around the entire perimeter of the small hoop.
3. Using a hammer and a heel, upset the small hoop so that the parts are securely closed.
4. Put the lower hoop on the skeleton and also besiege with a heel.
5. File the ends of the skeleton along the line drawn by the thickness gauge.
6. Remove the irregularities inside the skeleton with a stapler.
7. Plane the ends with a humpback planer.
8. With a straight plow, chamfer inside the core from the ends. This will prevent them from chipping and make it easier to insert the bottom.
9. Using a chime, cut a groove (chime) where the bottom will be inserted.

Cleaning irregularities with a bracket

Assembly and installation of the bottom of the tub

The fewer joints in the bottom, the higher its reliability. Therefore, for the bottom you need to choose the widest and thickest blanks. The procedure for making the bottom of a wooden barrel with your own hands is as follows:

1. Cut off the edges of the boards, temporarily rally them on a workbench.
2. To determine the radius of the bottom, put the legs of the compass in the groove-chime. Using the sampling method, select a compass solution that divides the perimeter of the chime into 6 equal parts.
3. On cohesive rivets, draw a circle with the resulting compass solution.
4. Within the circle, make marks at the places where the studs are to be installed.
5. Release boards. Drill holes in the edges in the marked places and drive in wooden or metal studs.
6. Tightly join the boards on the studs.
7. Plane the bottom on both sides.
8. From the center again draw a circle of the same radius as before.
9. Cut out the bottom with a circular saw, leaving a small margin outside the circle.
10. With a straight plow, chamfer on both sides so that the thickness of the wood at a distance from the edge equal to the depth of the chime remains equal to its width.
11. Knock down a large hoop with a heel, loosening the fastening of the rivets. Insert the bottom into the chime.
12. Carefully turn the tub upside down, upset a large hoop.

Now the homemade tub is almost ready. It remains to make a lid and a circle. It will not be difficult - you can focus on the manufacture of the bottom. After checking the barrel for leaks, you can start cooking pickles in it.

You may also find it helpful to watch the tutorial video.

Video: How to make a wooden tub

Using the techniques described, you can make tubs for indoor plants or flower beds for landscape design.

Flower beds will decorate garden landscape

How to make a reliable wine barrel

Having mastered the manufacture of tubs, you can proceed to the construction of a wooden barrel for aging wine with your own hands. And if homemade wine is not the subject of your interests, then the acquired skills can become the basis profitable business. After all, the demand and prices for cooperage products on the market are quite high.

The choice of material and the manufacture of rivets

The material for the body of wine barrels is exclusively oak wood. Rivets for them are prepared in the same way as for tubs, that is, split rivets are used. For the experiment, you can make a wooden barrel from boards (oak, of course). In this case, the barrel will last less than the one made of chipped frets. It should be borne in mind that boards for riveting blanks should only be straight-layered, otherwise the walls will crack.

Selection of boards for riveting blanks: a) such boards are unsuitable; b) these boards will fit

The frets for the barrel have a complex configuration. Each of them is thinner in the middle than at the ends, the outer surface is convex, the inner grooved. And the side edges look like gentle parabolas. Accordingly, it is more difficult to make barrel frets than barrel frets.

Steps for making barrel frets

First of all, you need to make a template, a pattern. Stages of making staves for a barrel:

1. Rough extrusion with an ax with a semicircular blade to give it the shape of a prism. Reducing the thickness of the middle part by 15-20%.
2. Beveling the side edges with an ax. Rounding of the outer face (control with a template). Measuring the width of the riveting in the middle with a template, determining its dimensions at the ends, drawing marks.
3. Beveling the workpiece to the ends along a slightly curved arc. Chamfering on the side edges with pattern checking.
4. Planing the outer plate with a planer or straight scraper.
5. Treatment of the inner surface with a humpback planer or a humpback scraper.
6. Edge jointing.

Assembling a wooden barrel

The beginning of the assembly does not differ from the assembly of the tub

Stages of assembling a wooden barrel

The beginning of the assembly does not differ from that for the tub until the moment when all the rivets are inserted into the upper (the barrel has 2 bottoms!) Hoop. Next, you need to do the following:

1. Stuff the second hoop, called the neck hoop.
2. The lower part of the unraveled core is steamed to increase flexibility.
3. Steaming time depends on the hardness of the wood and the size of the cross section of the frets. When constructing a thin-walled barrel with a slight steepness of the sides, steaming is not required.
4. Pull off the steamed rivets with a chain tie or a cooperage collar, put on the upper hoop, then fill the neck and middle hoops.
5. Harden and dry the skeleton accessible way, for example, gently rolling the core, which contains a layer of burning chips. You can use a gas burner, a blowtorch. The main thing is that the wood, as it were, “tanned”, but not charred. This procedure fixes the shape of the barrel, and the taste of drinks from it only improves.
6. Perform the same operations as with the skeleton of the tub: trimming, cleaning surfaces, cutting chimes.
7. Make and insert the bottoms by performing the same operations that were performed for this purpose for the tub. Only when installing the bottoms, in addition to removing the top, you also need to loosen the neck. In the upper bottom, pre-drill a hole for the bay, make a cork for it.

Tempering (firing) wooden barrels

You can get acquainted with the process of making wine barrels visually by watching a short video.

Video: How to make a wooden barrel

Video: Barrel for wine from boards

The construction of a barrel for a bath is similar

You have received some information on how to make a wooden barrel and tub with your own hands. If you have any questions, please consult an expert.

Instruction

First of all, choose wood, depending on your purpose. Linden, aspen, poplar, willow, alder are suitable for storing honey. Oak is best suited for salting, pickling or urinating. For other needs, beech, spruce, fir, pine, cedar, larch or birch are used.

Blanks or staves are made from raw wood, from the bottom of the trunk. Chock, which is 5-6 cm longer than the future riveting, radially split into blanks 5-10 cm wide (for sweet clover 15 cm) and 2.5-3 cm thick. Then fold the blanks for a month or more in a room with natural ventilation to dry .

Process the dried blanks with a plow and planer, first from the outside, checking the curvature according to the template taken from the finished product. Then process the side surfaces with a jointer, also taking into account the curvature according to the template, and the inner ones, to reduce the thickness in the middle, with an ax.
For the taper of the tub and the convexity of the barrel, the value of the riveting extensions has a ratio of 1.7-1.8 between the widest and narrowest part. For a tub, the lower end is wider, for a barrel - the middle of the riveting.

For the manufacture of hoops, take a hot-rolled steel strip 1.6-2 mm thick and 30-50 mm wide. To calculate the length of the future hoop, add double the width of the strip to the dimensions of the barrel at the place of the screed. Bend the tape into a ring, punch or drill holes and rivet with soft steel wire 4-5 mm in diameter.
Roll one end of each hoop with a hammer on an anvil. According to the location on the barrel, the hoops are called as follows: the central one is "onion", the extreme one is "morning", the intermediate one is "cervical".

Assemble on a flat surface, pressing two rivets against each other with staples against the morning hoop. Then, in turn, we insert the following staves, collecting the first half of the barrel, and also the second half. Tapping with a hammer, we upset the hoop until the edges of the rivets are tightly connected.
If there is a gap left that the last rivet won't fit, don't be afraid to trim it to the correct width, or remove another narrow rivet and insert a wide one.

Trim the ends of the skeleton with a hammer, put on an onion hoop and push it all the way with a hammer. Having set the base evenly, pull off the other edge of the core with a rope loop with a lever. Having planted the second morning hoop, align the ends of the rivets with a humpback planer, 2-3 mm from the hoops.
From one edge of the skeleton, make a groove with a depth and width of 3 mm on the inside with the help of a morten, into which you subsequently insert the bottom.

Assemble the bottom from boards fitted along the edges, nailing them together with brackets, and then cut them along a pre-drawn circle. Insert the bottom after loosening the morning hoop somewhat by adjusting the tightness of entry and pressing in with light blows of the hammer. The second bottom is also inserted on the other side, with the only difference being that a filling hole with a diameter of 30-32 mm is first drilled in it, to which a cork is adjusted.

The manufacture of barrels is called cooperage. Cooperage is a whole art that originated in ancient Greece. People needed vessels of large volume, and the most affordable way to make a large vessel with your own hands turned out to be the manufacture of barrels.

Initially, barrels were used to transport and store water, wine, and vegetable oil. From those ancient times appearance barrels haven't changed much. This uncomplicated design turned out to be so simple and convenient that it is useful and enjoys great popularity to this day. Despite the abundance of new materials and the emergence of new technologies, for some branches of human activity, there was nothing better than an ordinary wooden barrel.

How did wooden barrels come about?

The history of the barrel began with the fact that ancient people hollowed out niches in the trunks with their own hands. large trees. To simplify their task, they initially chose trees with hollows. Most likely, an observant person took note of how animals used natural hollow volumes - our smaller brothers built their own houses in them and stored food supplies there.

Among other things, people at that time collected honey from wild bees, that is, they were engaged in beekeeping. Wild bees, in turn, inhabited the same hollows of large trees. However, in order to get the desired honey, one often had to go deep into the forest, and various dangers lay in wait there, and it was simply inconvenient. In addition, there were sometimes a lot of candidates to pick up delicious honey from a particular hollow.

In order to make wild bee honey more accessible, people went to the trick and began to cut out parts of the tree trunk, in which there was a hollow with a honey harvest. Part of the trunk was placed closer to the house, and then significant changes occurred with this section of the tree. A modest hollow-hive was transformed into an apiary of impressive size. Caring owners of the apiary over time even made the roof of the bee house with their own hands. It was made from bark or a trimmed sheaf of straw.

After a young bee colony appeared, it was moved to a new hollow. However, it was not always easy to find a new hollow right size, so the owner of the apiary had to gouge it with his own hands in a thick deck.

However, the life of the hive is far from eternal - over time, the hollow begins to crack. In order to save a valuable section of a tree trunk from complete destruction, people went to new tricks - they began to use a metal hoop. The invention of such a hoop is a huge step forward, a new design that combines wood and metal can already be called cooper's utensils. To pull together a section of the trunk with a hollow or a niche hollowed out by one's own hands, ropes, plaits, wire or a wooden hoop were also used.

The diameter of the very first barrels directly depended on the thickness of the tree trunk. It was not possible to make the container wider than the tree trunk. However, when people learned to tighten the barrel with metal and wooden hoops, ropes, cords and wire, it became possible to make vessels of wood of absolutely any diameter.

Later, such a useful invention as a barrel turned out to be indispensable in some industries. For example, huge containers were simply necessary in leather workshops.

Why choose oak for making a barrel?

When it becomes necessary to purchase or make a barrel with your own hands, the question arises: what kind of wood should you give your preference to? For the manufacture of barrels, such types of wood as kedo, juniper, linden, pine, aspen, spruce, and, of course, oak are used.

In this article we will tell you about how you can make an oak barrel with your own hands. But first, let's talk about the features of using oak in cooperage.

It is worth noting that such a tree as oak is used much more often than any other deciduous trees in the manufacture of barrels. And this is quite natural - the consumer qualities of this type of wood are much better than those of other trees. We list some features of working with a tree such as oak:

• oak is quite problematic to cut, but chopping this kind of wood is a pleasure;
• You will probably have a question about how it is possible to make a barrel from such a durable tree, but such an important property of oak as the fact that after steaming it becomes incredibly elastic comes to the aid of cooperage masters;
• but after drying, oak, on the contrary, changes its shape only minimally, waves and cracks practically do not form, and this fact is another advantage of oak;
• however, the most important property of such a type of wood as oak is the presence in it of a special preservative component, this component prevents the wood from rotting, having an antiseptic effect;
• oak is not at all afraid of moisture, under its influence, on the contrary, it only becomes even more durable.

Oak wood that fell into the river and was in the water for a long period of time has unique qualities. Indeed, in water, wood is saturated with iron salts. Such wood lying in a reservoir is called "bog oak". Bog oak is especially durable.

Thanks to all the qualities listed above, it is precisely this type of wood, like oak, that has long been recognized as the best raw material for making cooperage utensils. It is the oak barrel that will serve you faithfully for decades.

It is worth noting one more curious fact regarding oak wood barrels. Such wood contains some specific components, it is thanks to these components that a unique pleasant aroma is formed within the wood itself as a result of oxidative processes - the aroma of vanillin. It is thanks to this property of oak wood that it is used for the manufacture of cognac barrels. Cognac from oak barrels takes on this pleasant aroma. Among other things, such a type of wood as oak contributes to faster leavening of the dough.

Even if you put a barrel made of oak in a damp basement, bury it in the soil or leave it under a downpour - all these negative factors external environment will in no way affect the amazing positive qualities barrels based on oak wood - these are the unique properties of this powerful tree.

We make a barrel of oak with our own hands

Now, having learned all about the benefits of oak barrels, we will finally figure out how to make such a container with our own hands. We present to your attention a master class on making a barrel based on oak wood with a volume of 25 liters.

The process of making an oak barrel begins with the procurement of material. Suitable wood should be brought from the forest in the spring, sawn into acceptable pieces, and then taken to the basement and covered with sawdust. In the basement in this state, your wood should dry out throughout the summer months.

As soon as the wood has dried, we proceed directly to the preparation of parts for our future barrel. We take a block of wood, reaching approximately half a meter in diameter and 42 centimeters in height, and split it as carefully as possible into four pieces.

After that, we also dismember the quarters: by gently tapping on the butt with a mallet, as in the figure with the number 1, we make 14 blanks. Blanks are made for riveting, the thickness of each blank should be approximately three centimeters. When making blanks with your own hands, pay special attention to the fact that your split must be radial, otherwise cracks will form in the wood in the future.

After the workpieces are ready, they should be processed on each side with chips. This is necessary so that they turn out to be slightly concave. This process can be seen in the photo with the number 2.

To make an oak barrel, we need two mounting hoops. In this case, the diameter of the middle should be slightly larger. The most important thing in the design is the so-called hoop-shutter, it is he who is responsible for the quality of the future barrel. The shutter hoop should be handled as carefully as possible, in no case should you knock on it with a sledgehammer.

Using the brackets based on the hoop iron, we fasten three rivets on the shutter, as is done in the picture with the number 4. After that, we fill the entire perimeter of our barrel with the blanks made earlier, and then immediately put on the middle hoop - at this stage we should get the same the same as in the picture at number 5. In order for this stage to go like clockwork, it is necessary from the very beginning to accurately calculate the width of all the blanks, based on the knowledge of the diameter of our future barrel.

After the two hoops are stretched, you will need to pull off the remaining piece of the barrel. Professional coopers have a special tool for this purpose called a yoke. However, many craftsmen go to the trick, inventing and making their own tools for tightening the barrel.

After the keg is well tightened, it is necessary to lower the upper hoop as low as possible. In the figure with the number 8, a special chisel with a groove is used for these purposes.

Next, the barrel must be dried. To speed up the process, you can put a barrel near the stove, if there is one. However, this stove should be heated for two hours every day, but no more.

P After two weeks of drying, work on the barrel can be continued. Using a straight plow, it is necessary to thoroughly clean the entire outer part of the barrel.

After that, it is necessary to make permanent hoops to replace the assembly hoops. In our case, these are four painted steel hoops in two different sizes.

Hoops are replaced as follows:

• first remove the middle hoop;
• after that, place a permanent hoop at a height of ten centimeters from the bottom of the barrel;
• then both sides of our barrel should be trimmed with an electric jigsaw, as is done in photo number 9;
• Next, install two more hoops on top.

Having done all this, we align the inside of the barrel with the help of shaped plows, as in the picture at number 10. After that, it is necessary to make a groove inside the barrel around the circumference. The depth of this groove is approximately 5-6 millimeters.

The bottom of the barrel can be made from pre-prepared boards. The connection is made with nails without hats, which must be stainless and galvanized. To prevent our barrel from leaking, the ends should be laid out with strips of cattail - this is such a little trick.

The difficulty that a person who wants to make an oak barrel with his own hands may encounter is the question of how to calculate the size of the bottom. You can do it like this:

• fix a point next to the groove;
• approximately estimate the radius of your barrel in this place;
• after that, using a compass, set aside 6 such radii along the groove;
• so that the beginning and end of the path fall precisely on a fixed point, the radius will have to be chosen by trial and error methods;
• the resulting size is denoted using a compass on the shield, which we lay out from pre-prepared boards for the bottom of the barrel, as in figure number 13.

After that, you should cut the boards along the outlined circle, using circular saw. Next, we clamp our bottom and with the help of a plow we make a jump along the entire perimeter of our barrel.

By the way, it is useful to put a white roll pre-soaked in water in the groove, this is also a little trick that will prevent your keg from leaking.

And finally, the barrel is ready!

Especially for the "Craftsmen" website, Vladimir Nikolayevich shares the "technology" of making a 25-liter oak barrel. How to make a barrel with your own hands, read on.

How to make a barrel with your own hands

In the spring he brought material from the forest, sawed it and covered it with sawdust in the basement, leaving it to dry for the whole summer. Soon we will get a wooden barrel with our own hands.

Churbak d 50 and 42 cm high neatly split into four parts. From quarters, gently tapping with a mallet on the butt (photo 1), pricked 14 blanks for riveting about 3 cm thick.

Important! The split should go radially so that the tree does not crack in the future.

I processed the blanks with homemade chips from all sides, making them slightly concave (photo 2). With a plane, he gave smoothness, at the same time narrowing at the top and bottom (photo 3).

For the uniformity of barrels of this volume, the master made two mounting hoops (the middle one is slightly larger in diameter). There is also the main hoop-shutter, which Vladimir Nikolayevich guards like the apple of his eye: he does not knock on it with a sledgehammer and constantly checks its evenness with a pattern drawn on the table, because the future “face” of the barrel depends on the correctness of the circle.

On the shutter, with the help of special brackets made of hoop iron, I fixed three rivets (photo 4). Continued assembling the barrel, filling the perimeter. Tapping lightly on the hoop with a hammer, he reined it in and checked whether the edges of the rivets were tightly connected. Then planted the middle hoop (photo 5).

On a note. In order to achieve contact of the rivets along the entire length of the side surface, it is necessary to accurately calculate the width and number of blanks, based on the future diameter of the homemade barrel.

After fitting two hoops, the rest of the barrel must be pulled off. Coopers have for this special device- yoke. But Vladimir Nikolaevich came up with his own original structure for the screed, which he calls the "goat".

I fixed a winch on a U-shaped metal frame turned upside down. I installed the barrel on the crossbar, wrapped the loose part of the frame with a cable and carefully pulled it off with a winch (photo 6).

Planted the third hoop on a wooden barrel (photo 7) and removed it from the "goat".

With a special chisel with a groove at the flat end, lowered the hoop as low as possible (photo 8).

I put the barrel to dry in the barn, heating the stove for no more than two hours a day.

After two weeks he continued to work. I cleaned the outer sides of the product with a straight plow. I made 4 hoops in two sizes from black-painted steel. Having removed the middle mounting hoop, I stuffed a permanent one at a distance of 10 cm from the bottom. Trimmed both sides of the barrel with an electric jigsaw (photo 9). Installed two more hoops at the top. Aligned inner surface shaped plows (photo 10). With a homemade chime with four teeth from a saw, I cut a groove 5-6 mm deep around the circumference (photo 11).

I assembled the bottom for the barrel from prepared boards, connecting with stainless galvanized nails without caps.

To prevent leakage, I first laid the ends with strips of cattail (photo 12)- the first secret received from the craftsman Belov.

I calculated the size of the bottom as follows: I marked a point near the groove and, having estimated the approximate radius of the barrel in this place, set aside six radii along the groove with a compass, as if inscribing a hexagon in a circle. To start and finish exactly at the intended point, it is necessary to select the radius empirically. The size thus obtained was indicated by a compass on a shield assembled from boards (photo 13). I cut it with a circular cutter along the intended circle (photo 14).

Clutching the bottom in a homemade stavlyug (vice for weight support), he made a bevel around the entire perimeter with a plow (photo 15).

He put a soaked white bun in the groove - the second secret from Belov against a leak.

Do-it-yourself oak barrels video

What can be compared, for example, with a cucumber or a tomato pickled in an oak tub. And in a linden barrel, honey, apple juice are perfectly stored, you can cook kvass in it. Finally, an oak tub with a lemon or laurel tree even today will not spoil the interior of even a city apartment. Just do not find these simple products either in the store or on the market. But you can make such a barrel yourself, and although this task is not an easy one, an amateur master is quite capable of coping with it.

Step 1. Choosing wood

Before creating a barrel with your own hands, you need to choose wood. Oak and pine are unsuitable for storing honey - honey darkens in an oak barrel, and smells of resin in a pine barrel. Here we need linden, aspen, plane tree. Poplar, willow, alder will also come down. But for salting, pickling or urinating, there is nothing better than oak - such a barrel will serve for more than a decade. For other needs, you can use blackberry, beech, spruce, fir, pine, cedar, larch and even birch.

Usually, the lower part of the trunk of old trees goes to riveting, it is called “riveter”. But a lover of tinkering will choose blanks from ordinary firewood, and adapt a thin trunk to the job. It is best to make riveting from raw wood.

Step 2. Chock split

First, the chock - it should be 5-6 cm longer than the future riveting - is split in half, gently tapping the log on the butt of the ax. Each half is then again pricked into two parts, and so on, depending on the thickness of the chock (Fig. 1), in order to ultimately obtain blanks 5-10 cm wide (for sweet clover - 15 cm) and 2.5-3 cm thick. It is only necessary to try so that the split goes radially - this will save the riveting in the future from cracking.

Step 3. Drying the workpiece and processing

The chopped blanks are dried in a room with natural ventilation for at least a month. You can use a dryer to speed up the process. The dried workpiece is processed with a plow or sherhebel and a planer. First, the outer surface of the riveting is planed. At the same time, to check the curvature of the surface, a template should be prepared in advance (Fig. 2), cutting it out of a thin plank according to the finished product. Next, the side surfaces are planed, also checking their curvature according to the template.

Riveting is kadushechnaya - in which one end is wider than the other, and barrel riveting - with an extension in the middle. The size of these extensions determines the taper of the tub and the convexity of the central part of the barrel. It is enough if the ratio between the widest and narrowest part of the riveting is 1.7-1.8 (Fig. 3).

The processing of the side surface is completed with a jointer. It is more convenient to do this by moving the workpiece along the jointer (Fig. 4).

Step 4. Processing the riveting from the inside

At the next stage, we process the inner (in relation to the finished barrel) surface of the riveting, cutting off excess wood with a planer or even an ax (Fig. 5). After that, the tubular riveting can be considered finished, and for the barrel riveting, the middle still needs to be thinned to 12-15 mm (Fig. 6). Let it not bother you that rivets can have different widths - we take everything possible from each workpiece.

Step 5: Making Hoops

Barrel hoops are made of wood or steel. Wooden ones are not so strong, and a hundred times more hassle, so it is better to use steel ones. Hot-rolled steel tape with a thickness of 1.6-2.0 mm and a width of 30-50 mm is used for hoops.

Having measured the barrel at the place where the hoop was stretched, we add to this size the double width of the strip. With hammer blows, we bend the workpiece into a ring, punch or drill holes and put rivets made of soft steel wire with a diameter of 4-5 mm (Fig. 7). One inner edge of the hoop must be flared with blows of the pointed end of the hammer on a massive steel stand (Fig. 8).

According to the location on the product, the hoops are divided into farts - the central hoop on the barrel, the morning - extreme and cervical - intermediate.

Step 6. Assembly of the product

To one jack-of-all-trades, the grandmother brought a crumbling tub with a request to collect it. Tom had never had to do this before, but he did not refuse the old woman. He came up with the following: he threw a rope on the floor and laid out one to the other rivets on it. Then he crushed them with pillows and pulled the ends of the rope together. Gradually removing the pillows, he brought the extreme rivets together and secured them with a hoop.

Coopers make it easier.

The product is assembled on any flat surface. First, two rivets are attached to the hoop opposite each other with special brackets bent from hooped iron (Fig. 9). Then, attaching rivets to one of them, we get to the other, which will tighten the assembled half of the barrel. Continue assembly until the rivets fill the entire perimeter of the hoop.

Lightly tapping the hoop with a hammer, we upset it and check whether the edges of the riveting are tightly aligned. To achieve contact of the rivets over the entire side surface, you need to add a rivet or pull out an extra one and after that put a permanent hoop. By the way, if changing the number of staves does not give the desired effect, you just need to narrow one of the staves or replace the narrow one with a wider one.

Having trimmed the ends of the skeleton with light blows of the hammer, we put on the middle hoop and push it all the way with the help of a hammer (Fig. 10).

Step 7. Trimming the skeleton and the final screed

Having exposed the skeleton on a flat surface, we describe with a pencil using a bar (Fig. 11) the cut line. Having planted the morning hoop, we cut the skeleton 2-3 mm from it and clean the ends of the rivets with a planer. We do the same with the other end of the skeleton.

In the manufacture of a barrel, after fitting an onion, neck and morning hoop on one side, the other side must first be pulled off. Coopers have a special device for this - a yoke. Home master may use rope, rope, chain or wire for the same purpose. You can tie a loop and twist it with a gag or pull the ends of the cable with a lever (Fig. 12).

There is no need to do any steaming or boiling of the skeleton, as some experts recommend, before tightening. Occasionally, however, it happens that the riveting does not bend along the entire length, but in one place and therefore gives a crack. However, in such cases, the cooper will prefer to simply make a new riveting.

Step 8. Stripping the skeleton from the inside

The assembled skeleton is cleaned from the inside with a plow or sherhebel, and the ends of the skeleton with a planer - a humpback (Fig. 13).
Now in the core you need to make a morning groove (Fig. 14). The cutter of the tool can be made from hooped iron, and even better, from a saw blade. The depth and width of the groove must be 3 mm (Fig. 15).

Step 9. Making the bottom shield

First, a bottom shield is assembled from a sweet clover with a planed outer side and jointed side surfaces (Fig. 16). The sweet clover is fastened with nails, as shown in the figure, for which nests are pre-drilled 15-20 mm deep. The radius of the future bottom is found as the side of a regular hexagon inscribed in the circle of the morning groove on the skeleton of the barrel. However, you need to cut the bottom with a margin, deviating from the intended circle by 1 - 1.5 mm. After cleaning with a sherhebel, chamfers are cut from the edge of the bottom (Fig. 17) so that the thickness of the wood is 3 mm three millimeters from the edge - this is necessary for the tight connection of the bottom with the frame in the morning groove (Fig. 18).

Step 10 Trying on the Bottom Shield

We make the first fitting - loosening the hoop, insert the bottom, inserting one side of it into the groove, and then with light blows of the hammer and the rest. If the bottom is tight, you still need to loosen the hoop, and if it is too loose, tighten it.

After stuffing the hoop, make sure there are no gaps. The perfect result the first time is rarely achieved. Even if the cracks are not visible to the eye, they can be found by pouring a little water into the barrel. If it flows between the rivets, then the bottom is too big and you need to trim it slightly. Worse, if water flows through the bottom or through the morning groove. Then you have to disassemble the skeleton and narrow one of the rivets.

Step 11 Installing the Second Bottom

Before installing the second bottom, a filling hole with a diameter of 30-32 mm should be drilled in it. The cork is made as shown in Fig. 19, its height must not be less than the thickness of the bottom, however, the cork must not protrude beyond the cutting plane of the core.

Step 12: Painting

First of all, it depends on the operating conditions. But it is important to remember what to paint jellied containers oil paint should not be: it clogs the pores, which contributes to the decay of wood. It is desirable to paint the hoops - they will not rust. For decorative purposes, a barrel, a flower tub can be treated with mordants.

The brown color of the oak is given by slaked lime mixed with a 25% ammonia solution. A black solution of iron sulphate or an infusion for 5-6 days of iron filings in vinegar.

A decoction of the rhizomes of the fragrant woodruff (Asperula odo-rata) turns linden and aspen red. Red-brown color gives a decoction of onion skins, brown - a decoction of fruit walnut. These dyes are brighter than chemical ones and more stable.

It must be remembered that wood is better preserved with a constant humidity regime. Therefore, dry products must always be kept dry, and bulk products filled with liquid. Both of them cannot be placed directly on the ground. It is better to substitute a brick or plank under the barrel than to subsequently get rid of the rot by cutting the chimes.

But no matter how long the barrel serves, all this time it will be a pleasant reminder to the owner of the difficulties overcome in comprehending the secrets of the ancient craft of the cooper.