Making a small barrel 3, regrouping.

My barrel wasn't completely symmetrical, and I suspected the reason to be that the individual staves were not equally flexible.
I spent some time to get them all a bit more uniform in thickness and then tried to reassemble the barrel.
It still wasn't as I wanted it. After some time fumbling with the hose clamps, it suddenly detonated between my hands.

None of the pieces were damaged, but I could see two staves that had significantly more of a bend than the rest of them. I decided that it was time to regroup the project by only using 8 staves instead of the original 10. This will mean that the volume of the barrel will be smaller, so I'll probably have to either make it a short walk with the dog, or just walk the dog myself without any company.

Regrouping meant that I had to alter the angle on the staves, but that was a quick job. I had a bit of  a problem getting the barrel raised using the blue masking tape due to its unwillingness to stick to anything, so I upgraded to some duct tape.
I am fairly sure it isn't a traditional way of doing it, but it sure works great.

A hose clamp was mounted on each end, and the barrel looked OK.
I decided that I should make the barrel shorter due to its smaller diameter in order for it to look good.
I got the idea that if I kept the hose clamps on while I completed the work on the barrel, I could round and sand it also where the hoops would be attached. In the end I will saw off the part where the hose clamp has been.

The barrel was rounded and sanded. I measured the outside diameter of one end with a piece of copper wire, and used that to calculate the size of the corresponding bottom.
The oak has got a lot of cracks, so I was a bit uncertain if it would make an OK bottom. I sawed out a piece and marked a circle on it. Immediately after sawing the bottom out it broke in two.
More regrouping..
Spruce might not be the classic choice for coopering, but on the other hand, a Newfoundland isn't a classic barrel bearing dog, so a swift decision was made to use spruce.

After filing the disc round, I used a chisel to chamfer the edges so it could eventually fit into the groove that I was going to make.

I tried to use my router plane instead of a croze, but it didn't work very well, so I guess I'll have to do a bit of tool making to proceed.

Sanded barrel with a spruce bottom and the router plane.

Set up for sanding.

Broken oak bottom.