How to make an oak barrel with your own hands? How to make a wooden barrel with your own hands: the choice of wood and stages of work How to make wooden barrels with your own hands

A wooden barrel is a necessary thing in any private household. It stores water, wine and pickles. It is difficult to buy it in the store, because such a product is rare. Therefore, it would be more correct to learn how to make barrels with your own hands. Moreover, having minimal skills in working with wood, it is not difficult.

A cooper is a craftsman who makes barrels. The process of making such containers is called cooperage. Ancient Hellas is considered the birthplace of this art.

Since then, the technology has changed little, and barrels continue to be in demand, especially among wine professionals. In this article we will talk about the features of this craft.

Varieties of barrels

Before you start applying the knowledge of how to make a barrel with your own hands, you need to study what types of this container are.

According to their purpose, barrels are divided into storage containers:

honey;
dry products;
wines and water;
pickles.

Barrels for drinks are distinguished by the presence of two bottom parts and a hole for inserting a tap.

According to the material of manufacture, wooden barrels are made of oak, pine, cedar, linden, aspen.

The leading position is occupied by oak containers. It is considered universal. Oak has the following advantages:

strength;
flexibility;
the presence of useful tannins with an antiseptic effect;
pleasant aroma.

In second place are lime barrels. Linden wood has a fibrous texture, is easy to process, practically does not dry out, and has no smell. Honey, pickles, corned beef, caviar have long been stored in such cooperage products.

A cedar container is also in demand. This tree species is easy to cut and chisel, products made from it almost do not smell.

Pine and spruce are less commonly used because they have a characteristic resinous odor.

Manufacturing procedure

The sequence of actions required to make a barrel is as follows:

Tree selection.
Making rivets.
Creating hoops.
Cooperage assembly.
Roasting, soaking and steaming.

Options for using barrels in the interior

One of the most popular modern interior styles is eco-style. It tends to be used in the design of objects made from natural materials. Barrels made of wood here will come in handy. Of these, you can build, for example, a mini-bar.

Another idea is a stylish table for a terrace or hall. The barrel is sawn in half, filled with straw, branches, etc. materials. A round tabletop made of glass or wood is installed on top.

You can use a similar thing as a floor vase. You can also grow flowers in your summer cottage. Such a container will make an interesting solution for a dog kennel.

It is enough to put it on its side and install it on the scraps of the log. This shelter will protect your four-legged friend from precipitation, winter frost and summer heat.

Another way to use it is to make an original sink. You will need to choose a suitable washbasin and install it on top of the barrel. This is the perfect solution for a rustic or ethnic style kitchen.

original ideas

The dream of the owners of private houses is a cozy bath-barrel in the backyard. Advantages of a do-it-yourself barrel bath:

Ease of operation.
Ease of use.
Compactness.
Relatively small mass.
Mobility.
Heating speed.
Unusual design.
Low cost.
Ergonomics.
Durability of the thermos effect.
Healing properties.

If it is not possible to build such a structure, then you can limit yourself to a summer shower. On the Internet you can find many workshops on how to make a shower from a barrel. This is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. The main thing is to have experience in handling carpentry tools and desire.

Barrels are not only wooden, but also metal. The latter usually serve as drives in the country. But they can be used in other ways - as a compost bin, waste incinerator, outdoor stove.

An iron barrel with your own hands can be turned into many interesting things, for example, a brazier, a mobile garden bed, garden furniture, etc.

Making a cooper's product on your own is quite realistic. You just need to have the right tool. You can make drawings for making a barrel yourself or find a ready-made version on the Internet. Put a little effort and diligence - and you will get a great container for storing food or an exclusive decor element. Here, as you decide.

DIY barrel photo

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 a special device for this - a 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. Leveled the inner surface with 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 hats.

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

A do-it-yourself wooden barrel made will allow not only to save money, but also to get a high-quality elegant product. Barrels made of wood were used by our ancestors for pickles, making alcoholic beverages and storing water, which proved their versatility. Therefore, they are still successfully used today. How to make a wooden barrel so that it is durable and does not leak? What tools and skills are required to make a barrel at home?

If you are determined to achieve your goal and are not afraid that you will have to refine the product to the desired state, then you can make your dream come true and make a wooden barrel yourself. Cooper is a difficult profession that came to us from past centuries. Today, there are few masters of this craft, and there are even fewer high-class specialists in the manufacture of barrels, so free-selling barrels are a rarity, and not everyone can afford the cost of the product.

Tools

To make your first barrel or small barrel, you need to prepare a place in which it will be convenient to work, tools and suitable material. In addition to the carpentry kit necessary for making a barrel with your own hands, you need to purchase cooperage devices:

carpenter's workbench, fitted for the manufacture of barrels;
long jointer and circular humpback planer;
a device for planing edges on the boards, a barrel will be assembled from them;
equipment for tightening rivets (pillar gate, chain coupler and frame gate machine);
skobelya, plow, bracket;
templates and patterns of own production;
clamps made of wood, metal (for assembling the skeleton of the barrel);
morning time - a device that allows you to cut the morning groove, where the bottom part is inserted.

You need to understand that it is quite difficult to purchase these tools, wood and fixtures on the market, since almost all coopers make machines and layouts on their own, taking into account their height. This is done by trial, no instruction will help.

What you need to know

The main difference between cooperage products is the assembly from pre-prepared wooden boards (staves). The size and shape of the barrel is completely dependent on pre-prepared boards, the configuration of which is set by the cooper. And the initial quality of wooden barrels depends entirely on the chosen wood. For this reason, it is not enough for the master to have a thorough knowledge of the instrument. You need to know the subtleties of each type of wood from which wooden products will be made.

An experienced master will not make a barrel for honey from oak blanks, because he knows that in such a container, honey will quickly acquire a completely different flavor and darken. But it is impossible to find a replacement for oak barrels for aging wines and cognac.

The second element is a hoop that pulls together all the components of the barrel. It is thanks to the hoop that water does not seep through the joints between the boards. It can be made from metal or wood. As the experience of the craftsmen shows, metal hoops are much stronger, and less time is spent on manufacturing than wooden hoops. But some masters still prefer a wooden hoop, giving the barrel a more beautiful look.

Details and the principle of manufacturing products

Many people think that becoming an amateur cooper is very difficult, and dreams never come true. But if you are not used to backing down from your decisions, then you need to decide which option will be your first job.

In total there are 3 types of products: conical, cylindrical and parabolic. Each corresponds to a certain type of rivets:

Products made in the form of a quadrangle, the long sides of which look like a parabola, are used for dishes with convex edges: barrels or barrels.
The circuit in the form of a cylinder is simple. It is easy to make and connect it with hoops of the same diameter, but when the wood dries out in this design, the riveting ceases to perform its functions. This is the main reason why such containers are practically not manufactured.
The shape of an elongated trapezoid makes it possible to obtain durable dishes when stuffing staves. Therefore, this type of product is often suitable for the manufacture of tubs, tubs and other utensils.

As an experimental sample, it is better to stay on a simple small barrel.

Many are interested in how an ordinary tub is made. The barrel is the simplest cooperage product, having achieved a result in its manufacture, you can switch to more complex types of dishes, for example, make a wooden barrel with your own hands.

The principle of creating a product consists of the following steps:

production of blanks;
assembly of dishes;
Finishing work.

The reliability of the structure will depend on the quality of the riveting blank, therefore the most suitable are blanks from logs of sawn wood, gouged out with an ax. For barrels, the most common wood option is oak, as it splits easily in the radial direction. The process of harvesting staves from different tree species is practically the same; a single-row or double-row punching method is used. For large decks, a two-row method is used, and for thin chocks, only a single-row method is used.

The procedure for punching out rivets is as follows:

The ridge must be carefully split in half so that the split line runs strictly along the center of the workpiece.
Each chopping block must be split in two to get 4 equal parts.
Next, you need to split the wood for harvesting in half again to get 8 equal parts. Usually for small logs this is quite enough. It is 1/8 of the part that will become the riveting blank.
If the ridge is thick, a two-row knockout is used, i.e. each of the 8 parts splits into 2 equal parts along the growth rings.
The resulting logs must be split in the radial direction. The result will be 1-2 smaller blanks and 2-5 for larger blanks.
Next, you need to cut off the wedge-shaped protrusions and young wood from the side of the bark. Only after that it is possible to dry the workpiece in an open area or resort to artificial drying.

Making staves

In order to make rivets from the prepared material, you must first prepare the drawings and a template for a specific product in accordance with the desired shape. To get ready-made rivets, you will need:

Run markup.
Make a rough processing of each of the blanks. Namely, round the outer surface, bevel the edges with an ax.
Perform finishing with a planer, constantly monitoring the result with a template.
Plane the inside of the workpiece with a humpback staple.
Trim narrow edges, then level their surface with a jointer.

In the process of making barrels, the cooper has to make tightening hoops on his own. The easiest way to get a hoop is from steel tape. To do this, you need to determine the diameter of the container and add double the strip width to the resulting figure. Next, using a hammer, you need to bend the tape into a ring, drill 2 holes and fix them with rivets. To make a small barrel, you will need 2 hoops that will correspond to the diameter of the upper and lower parts of the product.

Bottom assembly and installation

Plane the edges of the boards, fix on a workbench and divide the radius into 6 parts.
Within the circle, mark the places for installing the studs.
Pull out the boards. Drill holes in the edges, drive wooden or metal studs into them.
Dock all the elements tightly and secure with studs, after which you can cut the bottom.
Cut out the bottom, leaving a small margin.
Chamfer with a straight plow and knock down the hoop, loosening the fastening of the rivets.
Insert the bottom into the chime and turn the tub upside down.
Drop the hoop.

It remains to make a lid on the tub and, after checking the design for strength, proceed to use the container. If the work done was to your liking, it makes sense to continue working on the manufacture of barrels.

There are not so many masters of cooperage today, but the tradition of pickling in tubs, or storing honey and wine in barrels, has remained in Russia to this day. It often happens that it is not possible, for one reason or another, to acquire a wooden container. Then you can make an oak barrel with your own hands. Although this is not the easiest task, however, if you set yourself a clear goal and follow all the features of the technology, you can make quite a decent wooden container for storing food and drinks. We will talk about how to make an oak barrel with our own hands below.

We make blanks

To make a container, you first need to select the material. If you want to store beekeeping products inside, pay attention to lime or aspen raw materials, plane trees. Not bad honey is stored in barrels made of poplar, alder wood, willow. An oak barrel is ideal for salting, fermenting or urinating.

If you figured out the raw materials, you should choose an old tree. Its lower part is best suited for rivets. During harvesting, be sure to make sure that the churak is a couple of centimeters larger than the size of the future barrel. This stock is needed for grinding the edges.

The wood must be raw. Initially, the churak splits into 2 parts. For this, an ax and a small log are used, which are gently tapped on the butt. Each half splits in two again. It is necessary to ensure that the separation takes place radially. With each subsequent half, they do the same - the number of blanks depends on the diameter of the oak barrel. It is easy to prepare raw materials with your own hands, the main thing is accuracy. Please note that blanks may have different widths, but this is not scary.

Rivets are dried indoors, where good natural ventilation is established. The term is at least 1 month, and ideally even about 1 year. After drying, it is processed with special tools. It could be:

plow;
sherhebel;
plane.

First, the outer side of the riveting is processed, be sure to check the degree of curvature according to a pre-prepared template. It can be cut from a thin board, attaching it to the finished product. After all the outer surfaces are processed, you can proceed to the side ones. They are also aligned according to the template, and after processing they are jointed. The inner surface of the riveting is processed with a planer.

Rings

To make hoops, you can use both steel and wood. The latter option is less durable, so it is better to immediately give preference to metal. For hoops, hot-rolled steel in the form of a strip is used. Its width is about 3-5 cm, and its thickness: 0.16-0.2 cm.

It is necessary to make a measurement at the place where the hoop will be stretched. After that, the width of the strip, doubled, is added to a certain value. With the help of a hammer, the workpiece is bent, acquiring the shape of a ring, and then holes are punched or drilled in it and rivets are placed. The material for them is mild steel wire, the diameter of which is 0.4-0.5 cm. One of the inner edges of the hoop must be flared with the pointed end of the hammer.

Assembly subtleties

Making oak barrels with your own hands requires patience. However, the result is worth the time and effort. So, to assemble a barrel for salting, you need a flat surface. To get a finished barrel you need:

The skeleton does not need to be boiled or steamed before tightening, although there are those who insist on this. There are times when the workpiece can crack. Then experienced coopers replace it with a new one.

Bottom

To make the bottom, first you need to cut a groove from the bottom at a distance of 4-5 cm from the edge of the end, its dimensions can be 0.4-0.5 mm. To do this, a special tool is used - the morning. On both sides of the groove with a chisel, you need to make a chamfer from 0.1 to 0.2 cm.

The bottom is made of a special shield. It is assembled using metal studs or nails. Having drawn a circle, you need to step back from it by 1-1.5 cm and cut out the future bottom. After that, it is cleaned with a sherhebel, and chamfers are cut along the edges. As a result, the thickness of the rivets there will be no more than 0.3 cm. This ensures complete tightness of the structure.

To make a fitting, loosen the bottom hoop and insert the bottom. It is inserted into the groove from one side, and from the second side it is adjusted with a hammer to the desired level with light taps. With a tight move, you can loosen the hoop a little more, if it goes too freely, it is better to tighten the hoop.

Next, the hoop is stuffed again, and the barrel is checked for leaks. To do this, pour some water into it. If there is a leak between the rivets, you need to slightly reduce the bottom. If water seeps through the bottom or groove, you will have to disassemble the frame and narrow one of the blanks.

Before installing the second bottom, make a hole in it, the diameter of which is not more than 3 cm and make a cork under it. The correct dimensions suggest that it will be slightly more than the thickness of the bottom and will not protrude beyond the skeleton. That's the whole sequence that you need to follow in order to make an oak barrel with your own hands.

Repair

Can an old barrel be repaired? Of course. If an alcoholic drink was stored in it for a long time, it is worth disassembling the structure and removing a layer about 2 mm thick from the tree. Further, the drink does not penetrate into the wood. After that, the rivets are processed and assembled again.

You can repair an oak barrel with your own hands, even if it leaks. To do this, you need to repeat the same manipulations as in the manufacture of containers - adjust the hoops.

This is what it is, cooperage business. You can make wooden products yourself, but this requires a lot of time and effort. But is it worth spending them, if today you can order via the Internet, on the website of the Russian Bondar company?

You can buy almost everything today. But it’s quite difficult to find a wooden barrel, really high-quality, solid, and besides, it is expensive. There is another point that not everyone takes into account - it is not a fact that a finished barrel is suitable for a specific purpose. The reason is the mismatch of the wood species. The conclusion is unequivocal - to make a barrel yourself. And if you deal in detail with the drawings, the nuances of the work, then it will not turn out to be any complicated and impossible with your own hands.

Pine

Elasticity, bending flexibility.
Easily processed with household tools.

When the temperature rises, it will resin abundantly.
The characteristic smell that will always be present inside the barrel.

Recommendation - such wooden barrels are not used for storing food or fermenting anything.

Juniper

Strength combined with ease of processing.

Big weight.

Recommendation - it is advisable to use for the manufacture of relatively small barrels for transportation (storage) of bulk materials.

Oak

It bends beautifully after the tree is well steamed.
Contains fungicides that protect the structural elements of the barrel from decay.

High material cost. To make a high-quality barrel, you will have to use a tree that is at least 80-100 years old.

Recommendation - if the barrel is intended for storage (sourdough) of products, aging of wines, and so on, then oak boards should be chosen.

According to the reviews of those who have already made a wooden barrel with their own hands, you can also use such types of wood as linden, ash, aspen, mulberry.

The choice of material is a rather specific issue. If a barrel is needed to store stocks of wine (cognac, vodka), sourdough (salting) of cucumbers, watermelons, apples, and so on, then the best tree for it is oak. This is undeniable. But it is hardly correct to spend such wood (given its cost) on making a container with your own hands, in which it is supposed to store cement, sand, bulk products. Other breeds, “simpler”, are quite suitable for these purposes.

The procedure for calculating the parameters of the barrel

Based on its purpose and installation location, dimensions and design features are selected. In everyday life there is some confusion with the concepts. In principle, both the tub and the barrel are containers of a certain capacity, which are assembled manually from separate boards (staves, fret in the language of professionals). The difference is only in the geometry. The pictures explain everything well.

What is defined for the drawing:

Barrel height
Diameters (large and small).
The angle of the staves and their number.

To simplify calculations, it is advisable to focus on typical data that are used by specialists when drawing up barrel drawings.

Do-it-yourself wooden barrel - instructions

The algorithm of actions is clear from the figures, which show the main stages of work.

But separate explanations will not be superfluous.

Rivets can be made from logs or boards. The first option is preferable, although its implementation by hand is much more difficult. The fact is that only the lower part of the tree trunk goes to the manufacture of the barrel, from the roots to the branches. You will have to chop logs (decks) on your own.

What is the feature?

The ax blade must hit exactly in the center, along the diametral line. This will somewhat facilitate the work and allow you to get high-quality rivets in larger quantities (based on each deck).

Boards are obtained by splitting, hewing chocks. Wood processing is always carried out along the fibers, and not across.

It is advisable to prepare at least 2 - 3 spare rivets. Why, it will become clear when describing the assembly order of the barrel.

To facilitate bending, the rivets are given an irregular geometry. The thickness at the ends of each board should exceed the same parameter in the center by about 0.2. That is, if it is supposed to assemble a barrel from 10 mm boards with your own hands, then they are hewn with the expectation that their thickness in the lower and upper parts of the container is at least 12.

Drying staves

Various sources indicate terms that are measured in months, or even years (up to 3). At this point, it is necessary to focus on local conditions, the initial and its porosity. Recommendations for artificially accelerating this process when doing do-it-yourself work are not entirely useful. Without practice, it is difficult to determine the optimal mode for the same electric / cabinet and the exposure time of the tree in it. Experienced craftsmen advise to wait until the moisture evaporates from the wood naturally.

It is only necessary to place it in a room with proper conditions - a temperature of at least +20 ºС and good ventilation. You may have to wait 2 or 3 years. But a high-quality barrel "in one day" is not made, and this must be understood.

If we are talking about a container for household purposes, then you can dry the staves even on the stove. But in any case, a barrel is not assembled from raw boards. After a couple of weeks (due to shrinkage of the wood), gaps will begin to appear between them. Checked.

hoops

Finding metal strips, drilling holes for rivets with your own hands is easy. The only thing you should pay attention to is that it is better to take tool steel. It is characterized by increased strength (tensile strength) and corrosion resistance. If it is pre-treated with drying oil and then burned (for example, with a blowtorch), you will get hoops of the original light brown shade.

Bottom

It is cut out of a shield, which is assembled by hand from pre-prepared boards. Moreover, using a different technology than frets (sidewalls). Their thickness does not change along the length. To ensure the tightness of the joints, the ends are milled, that is, the assembly is carried out according to the well-known tenon-groove principle. In some cases, special (sealing) rails are installed.

Barrel assembly

The sequence of actions is shown in this figure.

This work is not done alone; 2 - 3 assistants will definitely be needed. Rivets are placed along the lower hoop with maximum fit. If the last board does not "fit in", it should be trimmed slightly to size. This is where spares come in handy, since the first or even the second time, with your own hands, without experience, it may not be possible to adjust the “finishing” board. A little bust with a sample of wood, and it will have to be rejected.

The penultimate stage - installation of the bottom

And only after that, the hoops are coupled (if they are adjustable) or their final landing in place (in height).

The last step is wood sanding.

How to process the barrel from the outside is decided on the spot (“skin” and manually, sanding / machine), but after that it is desirable to cover the container with beeswax (thin layer). This will provide additional protection for the tree from external factors.

Good luck, beginner coopers!