185 



COOPERAGE, COOPERING. 



COOPERAGE, COOPERING. 



188 



other tough wood. These hoops are bent, notched, and fitted by work' 

 men who carry on this operation alone. 



Small wet work. The smaller casks or kegs for containing liquids 

 differ from those just described chiefly in the greater care necessary ; 

 every part is more accurately adjusted, and iron hoops are frequently 

 used instead of wood. 



Larye dry work. Large casks for dry goods are made of beech, ash, 

 or oak. The staves are sawn to the proper length ; listed or chopped 

 narrow at the ends ; slightly dressed or shaved on the side which is to 

 be outwards ; jointed or bevelled so as to fit accurately side by side ; 

 and thus prepared for building up or putting together. The large 

 casks are more difficult to put together than those of smaller size ; but 

 it is done nearly in the same way, by the aid of temporary hoops, 

 within which the staves are adjusted side by side. One man can make 

 a small cask ; but it requires two or three to hoop together the staves 

 which are to make a large one. The chime, or smooth curved surface 

 of the cask, is produced by a dexterous use of the adze. The perma- 

 nent hoops, which are to supersede the temporary truss-hoops, are 

 made of birch, hazel, or ash, and are partially prepared before they 

 reach the cooper's hands. The hoops are secured partly by notches 

 and partly by nails. 



Large iKt tcvrk. Wet work and tight work mean the same thing in 

 the cooper's vocabulary ; they refer to the making of casks with the 

 joints so close as to be fitted for the retention of liquids. Rum- 

 puncheons and other kinds of large wet work are made of oak Quebec, 

 Virginia, Dantzig, Hamburg, or English ; the first two are found to be 

 the best for spirit-casks, and the last three for beer-casks. Quebec is 

 the closest-grained, toughest, and most pliable ; English is the hardest, 

 most durable, and most expensive to work. The oak is too tough to 

 be split into stave-pieces ; it is cut by the saw ; and according to the 

 mode in which this sawing is effected, the pieces are called slabbed 

 staves, tongued staves, straight-cut staves, or doublet staves. The suc- 

 cessive processes by which a cask is made the listing, jointing, back- 

 ing, shaving, head-making, dowelling, firing, trussing, grooving, heading, 

 hooping, tc. are analogous in general character to those for large dry 

 work, but more precise at every stage, and requiring more skill in the 

 workman. The making of the sides or edges of the staves requires 

 peculiar care. Let it be supposed that a beer-barrel is to be made. 

 Not only must the joints be made so smoothly and accurately that 

 when the staves are brought together they must be perfectly water- 

 tight, but as the cask must hold precisely 36 gallons, and as the staves 

 may vary in thickness, the cooper must so manage his exterior curve 

 aa to preserve symmetry, and yet retain a uniform internal capacity. 

 The oval casks, which occasionally adorn the bar of a modern gin-palace, 

 are the most difficult part of a cooper's work ; two circular casks of 

 different sizes are partially made and taken asunder, and the staves of 

 the larger are so adjusted as to produce the broad sides of the oval, 

 the ends being formed from the staves of the smaller. 



]\'hite work. White cooperage comprises open vessels, such as tubs 

 and pails, generally larger at the top than the bottom ; and, unlike 

 casks, such vessels are smoothed on the inside as well as the out. The 

 timber mostly employed is either oak or ash. Almost the whole of 

 the cutting is effected by the instrument called a shave, something like 

 the wheelwright's spoke-shave in its mode of action, but used by the 

 cooper in a great variety of different forms. The building up of the 

 vessel requires great neatness of handling ; but not so much practiced 

 skill is needed as in large wet woi k, owing chiefly to the circumstance 

 that such accuracy of dimensions is not needed. 



Back-making The large brewing vessels called backs are thus made : 

 The bottom is usually set up first The staves are fitted in and pegged 

 to each other, without reference to any particular proportion between 

 them, some being wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, or vice 

 vend. The workman can bring all into symmetry by adjusting the size 

 and form of the pieces last put in. Hi work is, in fact, carpentry rather 

 than cooperage. 



Duck-work : In addition to the above, there is a kind of cooper's 

 work done at the Docks, to filled rather than to empty casks. Sugar 

 comes over in hogsheads, containing from 1000 to 1500 pounds each. 

 These are thin and slightly made ; they are subjected to rough treat- 

 ment when the sugar is packed into them, and to rougher on ship- 

 board. As a consequence, the hogsheads are distorted in every 

 imaginable way, when landed at the docks in London, Bristol, Liver- 

 pool, or elsewhere. It is a custom, perhaps a necessity, that these 

 hogsheads should be brought into something of a symmetrical shape 

 before the sugar is sold to the dealers. This is difficult work to 

 accomplish with the sugar remaining in the hogsheads, for it frequently 

 happens that several of the staves and some of the hoops have been so 

 shattered aa to require removal and replacement by new pieces. Casks 

 containing wines and spirits are always examined at the docks, to test 

 their soundness ; and any defective places are repaired by piecing. 

 When such casks are landed in such a damaged state as to be unsafe, 

 the wine or spirit i racked into other vessels, and the damaged cask is 

 remade out of the old materials ; this is done, not simply to save the 

 expense of new wood, but because the old and well-seasoned wood is 

 leg* likely than new to impart a bad flavour to the liquor. It is gene- 

 rally rum-puncheons, made by negroes in the West Indies, which 

 require this process of remaking. 



When we consider how mathematically exact all the angles and 



curves must be, cask-making would seem to be a branch of manu- 

 facture peculiarly fitted for the application of machinery. Accordingly, 

 we find that patents are frequently taken out for cask-making machi- 

 nery. Some of these we shall describe. 



One patent, by Mr. Brown, obtained thirty years ago, relates to a 

 system of machinery, of which one part cuts the edges of the staves ; 

 another part cuts the groove or chime for receiving the head ; a third 

 part cuts the head into a circular shape ; a fourth bevels the edge of 

 the head ; and a fifth gives a smooth circular surface to the exterior of 

 the cask. 



Davison and Symington's patent respecting casks, taken out in 1844, 

 relates to the value of a rapid current of heated air, not only in drying 

 wood, but in removing fungous impurities which often accompany 

 damp wood. They recommend that, in making a cask, instead of 

 drying the wood in the ordinary way before using, by which it is 

 dimcult to bend without blistering, it should be cut up quite green, 

 and shaped into staves and heads, due allowance being made for 

 shrinkage. The pieces are easily bent in this state, and being tempo- 

 rarily fastened together, they are exposed to a rapid current of heated 

 air, which carries off all the moisture, and shrinks the pieces to the 

 proper size. 



The same patentees also use hot air to cleanse casks after using : a 

 method which they consider to be more effectual and cheaper than the 

 use of steam, which is ordinarily employed in the great breweries. In 

 order 10 remove from the interior of the cask any fungus or impurity 

 which cannot be removed by the heated air, the patentees use a 

 peculiar kind of chain, which enters at the bung-hole, and is worked 

 about by means of machinery. 



Mr. Robertson, a cooper of Liverpool, took out a patent in 1849 for 

 a series of machines of rather complicated character, for making casks 

 and similar vessels. One piece of apparatus is intended to plane at 

 one time, both sides of the staves which are to form the curved part of 

 the cask ; giving a convexity to one surface and a concavity to the 

 other surface of tach piece of wood. A second piece of apparatus 

 planes the edges of the staves, giving to each edge the particular slope 

 necessary for the staves to assume a circular arrangement when placed 

 edge to edge. A third machine compresses all the staves together in a 

 circular form, and forces the ends within the hoops which are to bind 

 them together. Another machine presses together the pieces of wood 

 which are to form the head of the cask, cuts them into a circular form, 

 and bevels the edges. A fifth piece of apparatus cuts the groove in 

 which the head is fitted to the cask ; and another punches the holes in 

 the iron hoops. Thus, according to the patentee's plans, every part of 

 a cask is made by machinery. 



Mr. Samuel Brown patented in 1840 a mode of making metallic 

 casks. The cask is formed of a parallelogram of sheet iron or other 

 metal, turned up into a cylindrical form, with an ordinary lap joint. 

 The head of the cask is formed of a circular piece of metal, cut out and 

 turned up all round the edge ; . this being forcibly driven into the 

 cylindrical barrel, has riveta placed at intervals of four or five inches all 

 round, which are rivetted through the barrel and through the turned- 

 up edge of the head. The other end of the cask, called the moveable 

 head, is made like the first, but attached in a different manner ; in this 

 case, projecting ears of metal are rivetted at proper intervals around 

 the cylinder ; and the heads of these rivets being within the cylinder, 

 serve as stops to prevent the head of the cask from being driven in too 

 far. This second head being forced into its place, the ears are bent 

 down upon the edge of the cylinder, and over the raised edge of the 

 head, thereby retaining it firmly in its place. The joints are to be 

 made fluid-tight with any of the ordinary paints or cements. 



In 1852, Messrs. Fox and Henderson devise^ a mode of making iron 

 casks, for the palm-oil trade ; they produced casks 43 inches in length 

 by 38 in bulge, containing 214 gallons each. 



In the same year, Messrs. Duncan and Button took out a patent for 

 machinery for giving form to the jointing-edges of wood-planks for the 

 staves of casks ; producing edges to the pieces for forming the cask- 

 heads ; drilling the holes for the dowels used in putting together the 

 heads ; giving form to the outer edge or circumference of wood-plankB 

 for heads ; hollowing and bevelling the ends of the staves ; forming the 

 grooves to receive the heads ; and putting together. 



Perhaps the most complete system of cask-making machinery is that 

 of Mr. Grist, recently patented. It comprises several highly ingenious 

 pieces of apparatus. One is a machine for bending wood to form the 

 staves. The piece of wood to be beut is first saturated with hot water 

 or steam, and is then placed upon the outside of a hollow metal case, 

 shaped exactly as the stave is intended to be shaped ; the case is made 

 hot, and a lever, pressing on the piece of wood, keeps it in position 

 until it has permanently acquired the desired form. A second machine 

 gives the proper shape to the edges of the staves. Each stave is held 

 firmly in a frame, and is urged forward at a particular angle to meet a 

 saw and a cutter ; the saw cuts the edges of the stave to a right line, 

 and at the proper angle for the radius of the cask, and after this the 

 cutter smoothes or planes each edge. A third machine builds up the 

 staves into the form of a cask. A framework is built up of wood, cor- 

 responding on its exterior with the intended dimensions of the cask, or 

 rather, having an expanding and contracting power, to suit it lor casks 

 of different dimensions. The staves are placed against this frame, and 

 held there temporarily ; after which, truss hoops are fixed on, and the 



