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PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:09 am 
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Hi there.
I wonder if anyone has experience of making buckets of wooden staves?
I think the English term is coopering?
I have read an old Swedish booklet there you use a shaving horse and a bandknife plus a spoke plane. But surely it must be possible to cut angles with a circular saw, or at the planer?
I m looking for tips and experiences made but also suggestions of good US/English books about the subject.
Image
See "buckets"

Big thank you beforehand and
I also wish you all a Merry Christmas!
/Anders


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:54 am 
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You can certainly cut the staves on a tablesaw, especially for straight-sided work. But a good cooper uses quartered, and therefore normally rived stock, something that lends itself more to hand than machine work. You aren't making interchangeable parts, but, true to the origins of woodworking, parts that fit.

Roy's coopering episode is not available on line, but there is a lot of information out there which will do.

http://vinestreetworks.com/bucket.html

http://www.wthines.com/White%20Coopering.htm

http://www.tillersinternational.org/woo ... ering.html

etc.


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 Post subject: Thank You!
PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:03 am 
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Thank you NB George.
It was just the stuff I asked for. I have never had a go at coopering. I will try over Christmas vacation to do one project. If time try with two. 1st one will be cut with table saw and therefore not traditional one.
I also saw a special tool like a huge spoon knife been used to shave out on the inside of the barrel. I have checked in my drawers this afternoon and found a 10 inch bar of tool steel, 1/4´by 1´. I ´ll try to copy the design to produce such a tool before making a more traditional one later on. Ill keep you posted with my progress or failures in my process.
Thank you again for very valueble help and good suggestions of webpages.
/Anders


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 3:02 pm 
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If you cut the staves on a table saw you can figure the angles by geometry or simply use a set of cove/bull nose radius cutters to edge the pieces. The advantage of the radius cutters is they allow the use of different width staves .For even sized pieces the angles on each side are 1/2 the angle of the joint which is 360/ number of staves.


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:54 pm 
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I think that the shave horse, drawknife and spokeshave would be used more in the production of barrels or kegs, where the diameter in the middle is larger than the diameter at the ends, requiring that the staves taper both ways from the middle.

For straight or straight tapered staves you can cut them on the table saw. When I made a lighthouse base a few years ago I used 12 tapered staves. I tapered the staves on the table saw with the blade vertical and then bevelled them on the jointer, since I know that my old table saw goes out of alignment when the blade is tilted for bevel ripping and I don't perform that operation often enough to make it worth the headache of trying to adjust it. A set-up tool that I found to work really well was the Poly Gauge from Lee Valley: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... at=1,43513

It has the miter (or bevel) angles for 4, 5, 6, 8 and 12 sided polygons cast right into it so it can't be knocked out of adjustment. I used it to set the tilt on my jointer fence, ran both edges of all 12 staves to bevel them and the circle closed perfectly the first try. Since it was my first attempt at tapered stave construction I was very pleased.

Take care
Bob

P.S.: The lighthouse turned out fairly well:

Image

Image


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:24 am 
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Cooperage does not need regular width staves, and wants quartered or at worst rift grain presentation to take advantage of the slower water dispersion rate those presentations provide. If it will be used, I would strongly (re)recommend the traditional method of riving for cooperage.

Anders, it sounds like you have found an inshave. It, or a scorp are occasionally used when coopering with wide stock. http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com/default.php/cPath/1_280 Find or make your own froe and get some quartered stock going before you make an inshave. Make a piggin for use in the sauna (you DO sauna, right?) as your first project. http://www.springdaleark.org/shiloh/collections/piggin.htm

Bob, if you're just doing straight staves from flatsawn lumber, you might find it easier to use the bits here http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=45160&cat=1,46168,46174&ap=1 over the tablesaw method. It's not cooperage, of course, but it will make pillars for porches!


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 Post subject: Coopering update
PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 5:01 pm 
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Ive made a start on coopering.
Thank you for all advice.
I started to make a layout on some cardboard to figure out angles.
Image
See "coopering angles"

Theory is always good to start with but the practical work is often harder. Even so wasnt it Eissenhower that said Its crucial to have a plan, but you will never follow it anyway..?
At least I started out to cut some short pieces.
Image
See "coopering trying small scale"


Then I wanted to make something like Bobhams lighthouse. But I couldn´t just steal his design. What if I turned it around - it would make a good umbrella/cane stand?
I cut the 26 strips on bandsaw, hand planed the bevelled sides.

Image
See "Coopeirngdryrun"

Glued it together with Ducked tape fixing and two slings of rope that I hammered down round the cone to make it tight.
Routed the ditch in the base of the cone.

Image
See "Coopering2Glueupand routing"

It was then I realised. I shouldn´t have glued every strip together. Two should have been unglued so I could taken it apart to insert the floor...
Bummer. Had to cut it in halves on bandsaw again.

Image
See "Cooperinghalves3"

I cut out base of 10 mm plywood, in and glued the cone up again. Spend waiting time on turning a base.



Then it was time to plane the cone reasonably round, to cut off the sharp edges.


Image
See "planing round"

Thank you for watching.
More to come next week when I have more time to write.
/Anders
Image
See "turnign base"


Last edited by andersjustincase on Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 8:48 pm 
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Hi Anders,

I might be a bit late with this information as I see you have your project moving along nicely.

Here are some short videos from Colonial Williamsburg:

http://www.history.org/media/videos.cfm#trades

Scroll down that page to find them.

Another one from Colonial Williamsburg that costs money:

Forged In Wood
DVD


Tim


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:18 pm 
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WOW that's really coming along nicely! Can't wait until next week. 8)

_________________
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"I love the smell of Sawdust in the morning, it smells like, victory." Image
WWA'ers I've met: Popeye, Ed Avery, Stephen Wolf, Rockfish, Rodedon


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:16 pm 
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That is looking good, Anders! Wow, 26 staves! You would hardly need to bevel them at all. :D

I am curious as to why you planed it round if you have a lathe? I mounted the lighthouse base on the lathe to make it round.

Take care
Bob


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:04 am 
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Bobham:
"Wow, 26 staves! You would hardly need to bevel them at all."

Anders:
No it was pretty easy to plane them The cone is reasonable round now.

Bobham:
"I am curious as to why you planed it round if you have a lathe? I mounted the lighthouse base on the lathe to make it round."

Anders:
I didnt think of that at all. Inexperienced. But it must be ideal, did you put in the "floor", and then a a "roof" in the cone, and then put it between a faceplate and the dub? Or have you got a big fancy Nova chuck? My lathe is an obselete 3 jaw metal lathe chuck. Knuckle crusher

Thank you for your good comments, Bob.
/Anders


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:39 am 
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Hi, Anders:
As I recall, I screwed some stops to the inside of the cone and then screwed a plywood disk to the stops so that it formed a floor a few inches inside the large end. I believe I turned a truncated cone shape from a piece of softwood that would wedge into the small end of the lighthouse base and them mounted the assembly on the lathe between centers. That allowed me to turn the rebate for the final floor at the large end and true up both ends so they were parallel to each other. After the initial roughing cuts to bring the exterior to round I used a hand plane with the piece rotating slowly to true up the length.

Take care
Bob


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 Post subject: Update
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:28 pm 
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At last the umbrella/caine stand is sanded, and the stand/foot is turned.
Time for painting.
Read this book about old paint. The recepie: 2 eggs. Whip very hard. Let stand in bowl over night. Pour it in a bottle. Mix with 1 dl of water and 1 dl of raw linsead oil. Then mix with pigment of your choice.
That had to be tested!
One undercoad with no pigment was painted. Two days later a layer with aqua marine pigmen ad gold yellow for the foot stand. The blue turned out blotchy. As the book said when I red it carefully; Put on in thin layers. Let it dry for a few days and let it harden. Then polish with a brush.
Oh, maybe I should have stuck to commercial paint instead.. Anyway it is a good experiment.
Thanks for looking.
Anders
Image
See "coopering painting"


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