Making a small barrel.

The other day we received some stores for our main engines. The stores were delivered on a single use pallet.
On this pallet the two lower stretchers were made out of oak. The top of the pallet was some other type of hardwood that I haven't been able to identify yet.

Not surprisingly, I disassembled the pallet to save the wood.
The problem with the oak is that the nails had penetrated rather deeply into the wood.
There was something like 8" between the nail holes, so I tried to think of a small thing that could be made out of short pieces of oak.
There are of course many things that would fit in this category, but I decided that a small barrel similar to those depicted around the neck of a saint Bernard dog would be interesting to make.
Bertha will end up having the same size as a saint Bernard, so I see no reason why she shouldn't be able to have a small barrel of brandy fixed to her collar for taking a photo.

I have never tried my hands out on coopering, so this will be a journey into the unknown in that respect.
The diameter of the barrel will be such that I can make the ends from the oak as well, I am able to make a circular piece of 2.75"" in diameter. The barrel will be 7.25" in length and probably end up having a diameter on the middle of 3.75" That is if everything goes as planned.

I have read somewhere that if you split the wood for the staves, you can reduce the risk of the barrel starting to leak. This makes sense if you use some sort of ring porous wood. I think that oak is ring porous, so I am going to try to follow that advice.

After sawing my piece of oak into the lengths between the nail holes, I split the pieces using an axe.

After splitting I used my plane to flatten the individual staves a bit on the outside.
My first idea was to make them exactly the same thickness from the start, but I changed the approach and only flattened the outside and then I marked out the shape and used a hack saw to make the curved shape.

Once all the staves are done I'll try to plane them all to the same thickness.

So far I have experienced that splitting stock is not a guarantee for a flat piece of wood.
It might have something to do with the fact that the grain isn't the straightest on the wood that I have at hand.
Some of the staves that I had split also had cracks running the entire length down the middle, so far from all my staves could be used.
I am also beginning to suspect that there might be a reason for coopers to use special tools for their job, cause a regular smoothing plane with a scrub iron doesn't seem to be the most efficient tool so far for this project. (Not that such a thing has ever held me back)

Split staves before sorting.

Flattish and shaped staves.

The selection of stock.

Vegans and woodworking.

My daughter has been a vegetarian for some time, to see what it is like. She is not fanatical in any way at all, so she eat meat when she is home, but at her boarding school they have a special vegetarians menu that she likes.

During the finishing of the travelling bookcases, she watched me apply some shellac. 

I have a hard time understanding vegans, but that might just be because I am not smart enough.

Laura knows more about that way of life than I do, so we ended up talking about that while I proceeded with the shellac.

Apparently vegans shouldn't eat or use anything that is made by an animal unless it is not supposed to be used by the animal itself.

I only thought that they weren't supposed to eat stuff, but Laura said that it was harder than that. 

So it made me wonder if vegans can use shellac as a finish at all?

If the beetle produce the shellac for a purpose, it means that they can't use that finish.

If the shellac in the other hand is a waste product that the beetle doesn't use for anything, it should be OK.

I guess bees wax as a finish is also ruled out if you are a vegan.

Technically it doesn't mean a lot to me, since I am not a vegan, but I found the subject a bit interesting.

A bit akin to imposing a 100% hand tool use on yourself, or Only to use domestic woods etc.

So does anyone know a vegan woodworker and perhaps through this know if they can use shellac and bees wax?

WSBO, vote for your favourite shelf.

All the entries for the WSBO are now listed.

Please take a look at the many different and great looking shelves that the participants made, and please vote for your 3 personal favourites.

I guess the more people that will vote and show their interest in the build, the likelier it is that Chris Wong will arrange another build off in the future.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Normally the Danish society is perceived  as being very equal. Men can work in a kindergarten and women can become police officers etc.

According to Bertha, there seems to be some segregation though.

The other day Gustav and a friend were training horse jumping on the riding court, and Bertha wanted to participate. 

Liberty for all and the stuff about each individual should pursue his or her happiness free from intervention from the state. Well not in Denmark.

The department of local homeland security (my wife) apprehended Bertha after a short appearance on the riding court. 

So that is why she is looking a bit disappointed.

For the sake of any PETA members reading this, Bertha was released as soon as the training of the horses stopped.

I am not allowed to participate..

WSBO 5, Shelf completed

After gluing up the shelf, I just had to wait for the glue to dry before sawing off the protruding pegs and wedges for the dowel.

After sawing them all off, I sanded the surface flush.

I measured out for the two holes for mounting the shelf and bored those too.

That was all the work that was required today.

For me the biggest obstacle isn't to build the stuff. It is to take a decent picture of it.
At home I would have hung the shelf on a door or some other wood clad surface, and I could have taken some pictures of it.
But out here I don't want to make any holes for temporary mounting of my shelf. I tried to make use some tape, but that didn't work well either.

In the end I tried to make a cyclic wall (I think that is the name) using a floor mat and taping the top if it to the wall.

I had to balance the shelf to get it to stand by itself, so the hooks are not hanging quite as they will when the shelf is really mounted.

The completed shelf.

View from the other side

Details of mouldings.

Shelf lying on the back, note the position of the hooks (Thanks gravity..)

WSBO 4, making hooks and glue up.

The shelf I have at home has got some hooks hanging on the dowel. These were some that I made and installed many years after making the shelf as my sloyd exam project.
I wanted to make some hooks for this shelf as well, and they are not hard to make with some very basic hand tools.

The hooks at home are made out of heavy copper wire. Out here I have access to bronze brazing rods that are 3 mm thick (1/8"). They will work just as fine, but they are a little bit harder to bend.

I placed two extension pieces from a regular 1/2" square ratchet/socket set in the vice. The distance between them were probably 1/2" or so.
I start by making the eye of the hook.
When that is done, I fold the hook end around the other extension piece and make sure to fold it a bit longer due to the tendency of the metal to spring back.
Once I had made a bunch of hooks I used some pliers to cut them free of the rod that I made them of.
The places that I cut were rounded using a needle file.

Before the glue up I marked the position of the individual pieces in relation to each other, and I drilled some pilot holes for the screws.
The shelf and the supports are fastened to the back piece by means of glue and screws.

The shelf is temporarily screwed to the supports to keep it in place while the glue dries. Once the glue is dry I will remove the visible screws and replace them with a small wooden peg.

The had a kerf sawn in each end before I mounted it, and a wedge is glued into it.

When I had everything glued up and only needed to screw in the two last screws for temporarily holding the support in position with the shelf, I decided that the support was a little bit out of square. I pressed at it but it didn't move. I very lightly tapped it with my hand, but it still didn't move.
Then I gave it a smart blow of the hand, and the support broke in two...
I guess the dowel was a tight fit.
The broken off piece was recovered and glued back. After cursing a bit I managed to get a couple of clamps on, and finally the last two screws were in place.

Bending a hook.

Seven bronze hooks lined up.

Glued up shelf.

WSBO 3, supports and planing a dowel.

Since the design of my shelf is traditional, it requires a bit of curves on the supports.
The biggest obstacle for me is to make nice curves with a panel saw or a hack saw.

After sketching about 10 different lay outs, I settled for two curves.

I flattened the back of the board for the supports, and then I marked the finished size out on the board regarding the length / height of the supports. And cross cut the pieces.

Next I used a divider to make some pleasing curves and I clamped the two supports together and tried my best to saw near the line.
The convex curve was fairly easy to do, I just had to remove the waste every once in a while, and then come back at another angle.
The concave curve was a bit more difficult, but a hacksaw can follow a curve if it isn't too tight, so it ended up OK.

A rasp would be great for cleaning up such curves, but I had to resort to a couple of files and some 60 grit emery paper.

After that I marked out for where I wanted the hole for the dowel to go. I sandwiched the supports between some sacrificial scraps of wood and clamped it all to the table of the drill press.
I found a 16 mm drill and drilled the holes in one motion.

I ripped a piece of wood some 3/4" square, to make a dowel. I tried to find a piece of wood with straight grain to make it easy for me during planing.
A sticker board was set up and I started by making an octagonal. After that I simply tried to turn the dowel for every stroke, and it quickly turned reasonably round.
The sticker board was not helping anymore, so I changed tactics and held the dowel in my hand. That worked for a while, but not very well.

Finally I clamped my plane upside down in the vice and used both hands to maneuver the dowel over the blade. That trick gave me a lot of control, and the dowel ended up very round.
Finally I sanded it to an even rounder shape and checked that it could enter the holes in the supports.

Trying to saw a curve.

Rough shape of the supports.

Getting ready for drilling.

Stock for the dowel.

Almost complete.

All pieces of wood ready for assembly.