Craft of Coopering
The sequence of operations in coopering may be grouped as dressing, raising, heading and gathering. Making casks was ‘heavy’ work from beginning to end, so all the coopers tools were strong. There was a considerable range and almost every one of the tools were peculiar to the trade though some had a ‘family’ likeness to those of other trades.
Dressing was the preparation and shaping of the staves from the butt. According to the size of the cask, the staves are cut and dressed, the outer face with a backing knife and the inner with a hollowing knife. The stave containing the bung hole was made a little wider than the others. Work on the staves was done on a showing-horse; this ‘animal’ was to be found in the equipment of a number of woodcrafts.
Assembling the staves in the trusses to form the cask was known as raising. Heading was the making of the heads which fitted into the ends of a cask. The heads were made in four or five sections of oak according to the size of a cask. These sections are joined by means of dowelling. When the heads have been prepared with bevels in top and underside to engage with the cask grooves they were put in the casks. Gathering was the completion of the hooping to produce the finished cask. Copper, rather than iron, hoops were used for powder barrels because of the danger of a spark from the iron hoops. When the hoops have been driven home, the cask was said to have been gathered and the hoops were secured by a number of tenter hooks.
Read more about this topic: Ballincollig Royal Gunpowder Mills, Trades, Coopers
Famous quotes containing the word craft:
“He has more to impart than to receive from his generation. He is another such a strong and finished workman in his craft as Samuel Johnson was, and, like him, makes the literary class respectable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)