Coopering means
to do the work of a cooper. A cooper makes or repairs casks,
which is a skill that takes many years to learn.
An apprenticeship would last four to five years, although
you would have a hard job becoming a coopers apprentice these
days. Apprentices usually started at the age of fourteen and
then worked as a cooper for the rest of there lives.
A cooper would work in a cooperage. In the cooperage the cooper
would use many different traditional tools including:
Dowelling stock, side-axe, bick iron, round shave, Topping
plane, chive, Croze, bung-hole borer, hammer, driver, flagging
iron, adze, diagonals, heading knife, jigger, hollowing knife,
buzz, swift, downright and a inside shave.
Many of the tools were short handled to enable accurate one
handed use, the other hand is free to support the cask.
Traditional cask capacities
Pin - 4.5 gallons
Firkin - 9 gallons
Kilderkin - 18 gallons
Barrel - 36 gallons
Hogshead - 54 gallons
Puncheon - 72 gallons
Butt - 108 gallons
If the cooper was making a larger cask, like the 108 gallon
Butt, it would be difficult to hold the staves together by
hand. In these circumstances the cooper would use a windlass.
A windlass would have hemp ropes and would be operated by
hand.
Why use wood?
Oak casks breath, allowing an exchange between the air outside
and the contents. This results in some of the contents being
lost but this also allows the contents to mature. In the UK
whisky has to mature for at least three years.
Both the top and the bottom of a cask is called a head. The
heads are made from boards that have been dowelled together,
cut out with a bow saw and then shaved smooth. |
The staves are created by cleaving from a tree trunk. A cooper
cleaves rather than saws the trunk in order too utilize the
ribs of strength that run out from the heart of the tree to
the bark. In order to make the staves liquid-proof the cooper
has to keep the medullary rays unbroken.
Coopering terms
Stave - the boards making up the sides of the cask
Bung hole - the hole used to both fill and empty the cask
Bilge - the bulge in the middle of the cask
Chime hoop - hoops at the heads of the cask
Quarter hoop - the hoops between the Chime and Bulge hoops
Bulge hoop - the central hoops after the Quarter hoops
Rivet - used to attack the hoops to the cask
Heads - both the top and the bottom of the cask
Middle - the middle section of the Head
Cant - the section either side of the Middle
Quarter - the sections after the Cant
Chime -the extensions of the staves beyond the head
Croze - the cut where the heads are fitted
Stave joint - the joint between the staves
Cooper's tools
Dowelling Stock, Side-axe, Bick Iron, Round Stave, Bung-hole
Borer, Chive, Topping Plane, Hammer, Flagging Iron, Driver,
Adze, Diagonals, Croze, Inside Shave, Swift, Downright, Buzz,
Heading Knife, Jigger and hollowing Knife.
As well a casks coopers would also make, Piggins, Buckets, Domestic
Kegs, Butter Churns, Ale Vessels and Coal Scuttles. |
