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Best Wishes-

Chris

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Cockerel Woodworks
cheers
Ulfgar

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For example $1 US currently buys about $2 Aus or $2.50 NZ so if you are from the US you are effectively buying stuff from us at half-price or less, more then compensating for any additional shipping charges.

Conversely it is very expensive for us to buy from you. For example I would like to buy more stuff from Gaukler, HE and some of your other North American providers but by the time we convert our "pacific pesos" into your currency (US $ or UK pounds) we in NZ paying 3 times more for the item then you are in your currency terms.

Which means for us importing items which we can't get made to as high a standard locally is a major headache.

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URL=http://www.jousting.co.nz

The York Archaeological Trust has information on a remarkably well-preserved wooden bucket at the bottom of a well; both well and bucket probably date to the early 15th century.

Thanks for the neat link. Oh yes, Iron was used for hoops for buckets, and I don't think anyone doubts that. The problem is that in reenactment or living history, we see an almost inverse proportion of iron hooped coopered items to ones banded with willow. My guys (Gendarme & Fredrich) were picking up on my harping in the past about inverse proportions of the commonplace to the unusual - Mea Culpa.

Were I going to buy a theorectical three buckets, I'd get two banded with willow, and one with iron.

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So a barrel with wooden hoops is valid if you store your apples or clothes or pots or armour in it. But for me to see a bucket hooped with wood and heavily pitched or varathaned and holding water is frustrating. Put apples or onions or even slops in the wood hooped bucket, not liquid. Wine barrels are not coated inside, because they have the iron hoops.

In the above example of a common enough bucket lost in a well during the 15thc, it had iron hoops and a length of iron chain. Common enough not to go after it in the bottom of the well...

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Are you 100 % certain regarding that assertation? There are plenty of illustrations from the 15th century showing withy banding on barrels and buckets intended for use with liquid and liquid storage.

I have seen no representation of 19th century wooden band dry storage barrels in the Middle ages. The withy banding isn't a single hoop of trimmed wood, but several windings round the coopered item (usually 2 0r more).

They certainly had iron bound barrels and coopered items, but withy banding is more common in early illustrations.

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mark

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_The Viking_ by Sweden and Norway specialists ISBN 0-517-44553-0 mentions the discovery of a wooden bucket in the Oseberg ship made of yew wood and with metal hoops and mountings, probably brass. The other surviving barrels are single hooped strips, and it is hard to tell if it is withy or metal. Probably wood pegged on in the bentwood box style.

_The Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry_ by Jean Longnon ISBN 0-8076-1220-0 has on Plate 3, page 35, (possibly) the February scene of people warming themselves indoors, while outside sit some used barrels covered in snow. Once again they have paired hoops, but I cannot tell if they are iron or withy. There is a side bung hole. Could it be a fashion for paired hoops?

_The Medieval Household_ by MoL ISBN 0-11-290490-4 mentions on page 196 the various types of wood used for wooden vessels. On page 201 is a surviving bowl with three sets of paired lines decorating it.

So to back up a bit on my earlier statement. The majority of buckets and barrels would be used to transport dry goods. If one of them should fail, it would not readily result in the loss of the contents. I can see a well bucket being iron hooped to avoid splitting as it would be wet most of the time. I would imagine the well bucket is emptied into pottery jars for transport home. When shipping a valuable cargo like wine and beer, I believe they would have had the highest quality container possible. That is to say iron bound. At least the Hansa league demanded it.

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However, I think Chef's point is that in proportion, the volume of existing buckets in the 14th and 15th century would been more likely wood banded. Because they were cheaper to make! I agree that a town's well bucket or one that was seeing rough service might have been likely to be metal banded. Or those too valuable to lose their contents (wine barrels)? But I think that Chef is right in that local/common camp buckets in a miliary setting would have been much more likely to be those of the least expensive price (for general use). Aka quanity, not quality... So his suggestion that a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of buckets around the camp should be wood or rope banded.

On a different path,
I have a detailed book of findings from Freiburg und Konstanz with a short narritive section on the medieval cooper. When I get the chance, I will have to read and translate it from German to see what insights the archeological digs from Swabia produced (southern Germany).
"Holzfunde aus Freiburg und Konstanz" bei Ulrich Müller. ISBN 3-8062-1266-X

daniel

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Db

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A dry goods barrel need not be as carefully fitted as a liquids barrel. The staves on both barrels are wider in the middle than at the ends and this is what gives the oval appearance.

To make your own, you would need at least one metal/plastic garbage can to hold water in order to soak the withy strips.

The staves can be made from pine (the yard grade) at pennies per foot would do well. Rip the boards to the centre width of the stave and cut to length. Then either bandsaw them to shape or hand plane them. This will be easier with a master template.

To figure out the angle of the chamfer on the sides: Draw two circles to the size of the ends of the barrel. One circle inside the other and the thickness of the wood stave smaller in radius. Draw a few lines radiating out from the center point and bisecting the two circles. Mark off the width of the ends of the staves. This will give you the angle to chamfer the sides (this angle is the same for all staves). It helps at this point to have a jig set at this angle.

To attach a bottom and top, you need to rabbet both ends of the staves for the bottom and top boards. When the bottom and top boards are cut and ready to assemble, the staves and withys have been soaked, you then use the gie clever cooper machine, miracle happens and you have all the staves bound to the bottom boards. They are miraculously steamed with the secret cooper device and the barrel is flipped over and either a top added or the end is left open and the top end of the staves are bound together. There that simple. :-)

You can use a rope with a slip noose to pull the staves together and hold them while the withy strips are being tied on. This will replace the gie clever cooper machine. (which is a step on device that holds the boards together, and your hands free). And if you are quick enough, you can steam the staves ahead of time and have an assistant help assemble.

Speaking of bath tubs... it is just a larger circle. There are surviving pictures of tubs lined with cloth. Was this to prevent splinters? to provide water proofing? who knows. Still a bath tub is easier to make as there is no soaking of the staves required. Most tubs are straight sided. So all you need to do is to find the chamfer to plane them at, make a jig and go for it. And when you are transporting things, they can all get tossed into the tub as a large carry all for the many odds and sods that are needed like stakes, hammers, ropes, etc.

So to answer the original question, greenwood or seasoned makes no difference as the wood needs to be soaked/steamed to be formed into a barrel. However you can use seasoned wood to make a tub as there is no compound curve. Hardwood is much heavier than softwood.

Make an attempt at a small straight sided bucket using a table saw. Set the angle of the chamfer with the blade of the table saw. Decide how long a board is needed for all the staves, cut the chamfer 'before' you cut the staves to length. Use the table saw blade to make sufficient cross cuts to have a dado for the bottom of the bucket. Buy withy strips from a local craft store that deals with basket making.

[ 04-08-2004: Message edited by: Woodcrafter ]

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When were leather buckets used? I know leather drinking vessels saw some use in the middle ages (costrels... bombards?), but what about buckets?

[ 09-01-2004: Message edited by: Martin ]

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