[stefang]

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CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Get well Erwin.

 

[Dennisgrosen]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

well Mike I will say it the same way as the butlers last comment
in Dinner for one (90 year birth-day) sketch-movie
when they walk upstairs " I shall try my best "

Dennis

 

[Napoleon]

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CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Nice projekt you have here

" The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of."

The tool wich is normally used to make the groove in a bucket is a homemade plane i only know the danish for. Its called a "krøjshøvl"

Good luck

 

[TopamaxSurvivor]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Awesome post Mike. I think you have it very well thought out and covered all the bases. With this experience under out collective belt, I can hardly wait to start our long boat and prepare for the raid on Merry Old England just the way out fore fathers did it ;-)) We can carry our provisions in out water tight wooden barrels.

 

[Dennisgrosen]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Thomas :
the english word is Croze and was used after the Howel (site 213 in the handplanebook by Garrett Hack)

Dennis

 

[stefang]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Napoleon There is no plane for this method. The plane you are talking about is used in the making of coopered barrels.
This bucket is made with an entirely different method. Coopering was a further development of 'lagging'. In 'coopering' the groove is a shallow female 'V' groove which is planed around the inside top and bottom of the barrel. The top and bottom pieces have matching male 'V' profiles which fit into the female groove making a very water tight joint.
In lagging, the water tightness is caused mainly by the swelling of the container after it is filled with liquid.
The groove in lagged containers is deep and square at the bottom.

I'm afraid the confusion is all my fault, as I forgot to include the dado on my drawing at the top. I will have to correct that. The word 'Lagg' actually is a reference to the dado that the bottom fits into.

I hope this will clear up any misunderstanding, as quite a few folks seem a little confused between 'coopering' and 'lagging' I will include some small drawings in my next blog to clear up this point.

 

[mafe]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Hi Mike,
I'm really impressed by your drawings, I forgot to say this.
I thought it was illustrations from the book you refered to.
You are by far not with out talent when it comes to this also.
Just a side comment.
Best thoughts,
Mads

 

[stefang]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Thank you Mads, but, the bucket was traced and the others were copied from photos. Now you have the true picture, ha ha. My real talent is….....................ok, I'll have to get back to you on that one!

Today I've been busy calculating the material quantities and converting measurements from centimeters to inches. I will be posting this on the next blog in the series together with some more history a little later today.

 

[mafe]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Laugh. Yes then you are a good tracor…
I'm really gratefull for your efford, thank you.
Best thoughts,
Mads

 

[stefang]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

No need for gratitude Mads. We do these things for enjoyment.

 

[daltxguy]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Looking forward to getting started. Sounds like an excellent plan - and if it isn't, well I am sure you will adjust as we go forward - but enough to get started with.

I think if we have general questions related to the particular 'class', then they should be posted to the blog so that they can be shared and be available in one place.
People's individual projects and progress could be posted in a separate blog. Might I suggest that they all be tagged with the same keyword, so that we can search on them later - perhaps tag everything with "lagging"

Napping now…

 

[Dez]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Too cool!
I won't be able to do the build along due to several constraints!
I will be following along as I can and I will be building some of these my self later!
I may have questions as you go along!

 

[Napoleon]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Stefang it dont need to be v-shaped on "croze" (Thanks to Dennis for finding the right word) it can be any shape you want/make it. totally up to you,but before you can use it the bucket needs to be hold together with all the sticks in the right place.

 

[stefang]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Thanks for that info Napoleon. I didn't know that, it sounds useful for coopering, but not for lagging. In lagging you need the bottom to be inserted in the groove in the stave's and with dowels between the stave's to help hold everything in place while the bindings are put on.

 

[Sactomike]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

Mads, a great photo of the gun powder barrel. Wooden hoop like these were the first sort used in coopering. That Russian coopering book you sent me (thank you very much! Copies have been sent to the historic interpreter at Fort Ross, by the way, and added to the resource library at Sutter's Fort) shows the manner of making these hoops.

Notice the number of hoops here. In using wooden hoops, more were used than when hooping the staves with iron.
And wooden hoops were almost always used with powder barrels. Never iron hoops, anyway.

We have two wood hooped barrels at Sutter's Fort. I just finished repairing one that had its heads accidentally bashed in. Reparing the heads was simple. Not so reinstalling them. I took off half the hoops, which turned out to be two many-not enough pinch to get the head back in, so I had to drive down the most central hoop to make it work. Driving down the rest of the hoops created another problem. Tacks had been driven through the hoops to hold them in place, and rust and time had so weakened the wood that two of the hoop broke on the hole.

I used strips of canvass saturated with thinned Titebond III clamped in place for 48 hours. Almost did the trick, but
the hoops wanted to rise at the break. A tack with a wider head brought the cracks back in place.

I had better luck with the other end of the barrel, being forwarned of this weakness. They still had to be driven down, but I was careful to center the wooden hoop driver on the tack holes and finished without more damage.

 

[Sactomike]

-

CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

""

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

""

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.

I'd like to recommend a book-another book by Ken Kilby. This one is shorter but is full of ideas and photos, and has things not found in his big book on coopering. This one is a Shire publication titled Coopers and Coopering.
If I could only have one of Kilby's books, it would have to be this one.

 

[stefang]

-

1

 

[Dennisgrosen]

-

1

great blog Mike
can you give the radius on the plane bottom now ….just curios to see if
I can convert an old germanstile jackplane to it

and thank´s for the last drawing of the different stile

take care
Dennis

 

[stefang]

-

1

Good question Dennis. I will get an idea tomorrow and send you a PM. One thing to be aware of is that if you round the bottom of an existing plane you will probably get a too big opening (mouth).

If it has an adjustable opening, then I assume that this wouldn't be a problem. If the mouth is too open, you will get over thick shavings, chatter and loose control of the cuts.

Rounding an existing wood plane is also suggested as an option by author of the book I'm using, but I'm not sure he thought through the consequences.

 

[Dennisgrosen]

-

1

maybee It shuold be a worn smoothing plane thats already have a fine mouth
but I did see Tommy on the rough cut show converted an english jack or panel plane to it
when he made his copy of the old bombsecretair furniture
so it shuold be possiple and if you think of the moulding plane´s they also open op the mouth
the longer you get from the bottom thats why the the english and amercan moulding
planes is made so you have to angle them in use

Dennis