I love old woodworking info videos. It reminds me when I was sitting in class in elementary school during recess, on a rainy day, we'd have old reel to reels like this for viewing. Not so much for woodworking, but this quality and genre of videos, they were really neat.

I came across this video and loved it, just thought I'd share.

Keep an eye on the initiation ritual into being a full fledged Journeyman Cooper, it's awesome. They call it the "Tossing of a Cooper".

 

 

Love the music too!

Great find...thanks, John...

Tossing the cooper would have me tossing my cookies!

 

Great video!

My cookies would go when they rolled me around.  Nice old film though.

That is neet for the old style . Watch the video behind it called "Follow Me" for the story on more modern assembly of a barrel .

Thanks for the link

Love the old "announcer voice" too.

 

About 40 years ago, I saw a demo of a cooper making a barrel by hand and eye and was impressed.

 

A couple years ago we vacationed in bourbon country and went to the shop that made barrels for many of the distilleries there.   Most of the things were cut and shaped by machine and most of the human effort was just laying up the appropriate number of staves where a hydraulic press would clamp them together, add the bands and insert the heads.

 

 

Unfortunately, another soon to be lost art! The old ways of hand making certain things will soon disappear. It will be a rare person, that, can; cooper a barrel, make a wooden wheel, or a dozen other unique specialties.

 

The old craftsmen are dying out and the younger folks have no interest in learning.

We have a cooperage in our community where they still cut the staves, piece the barrels and set the rings by hand. there is some mechanical assistance to get things to come together but alot of the old ways still apply.

http://www.blackswanbarrels.com/

 

I am aquainted with the old guy in the pics on the website and I occasionally get some of the cast off wood which I make smaller items such as jewelry and keepsake boxes from 

Hammers looked like a few I  saw over the weekend...

But I didn't have the $40 for it.   Closest I get to a barrel..

I could see the marks from the machine that pressed those rings on....and, the durn things was empty, Drat.

As to that hammer? I think I counted maybe 10 of them at different tables.   Din't see any cooper's planes, though.

Nice Cooper's hammer/adze on that table Steve. 

Funny thing with those hammers/adzes, you never see a copper using the adze end!

Around here a barrow used one time will bring $650.00 used.