TIP #160 GRANDPA WAS A COOPER It has been said that there were as many, or more, coopers in the southern part of the United States as there were blacksmiths. There was a definite need for their services in the country and in the city as the cooper made barrels. The early farmers found it a very tedious job carving out tree trunks to make the barrels they needed; these hollowed out tree barrels were called "gums". Barrels were needed for everything - storing flour, corn meal and other grains in what were called "slack barrels", and for liquid storage he needed a different kind. They stored molasses, maple syrup, beer, fish, salt meat and other commodities. Yet another variety of barrels were known as kegs which were used for storing gun powder. The cooper could provide all these barrels plus necessities for the old Kentucky housewife in the way of pails, wash basins and assorted storage containers. The cooper used a shingle horse and cut the transverse arcs into a barrel stave by the use of curved drawknives. A drawknife roughed out the angles needed for the sides of the staves. They were then roughly finished and beveled. The process was a long one. The cooper pulled the stave edges across the blade of a fixed jointer plane which was normally more than five feet long. This was attached to "legs", blade side up. He stood a set of staves on end inside a stout truss hoop which was adjustable. It was fastened at the lower end and allowed the tapered slaves to flare outward at the top. The rope of the cooper's windlass was then passed around the tops which bent them and pulled them evenly together. The cooper removed the rope and drove the hoop downward with a wooden mallet and a wooden "drift" to tighten the staves against each other. The stave ends were left rough until the hooping process was done; the cooper then trimmed off the ones that were too long with a hand adz and smoothed the ends with a tool called a sun plane. Then he took another cutter called a howel beveled the "chines" on the inner edges of both ends. He also used a strange saw which had an arched blade set which had a few coarse teeth. Using this, the cooper made a shallow cut which gouged out a V-shaped groove. This groove was often called a "croze" Barrels had to have "heads" which the cooper doweled together the edges of about 2 boards, and then, using a large compass, scratched out two circles on the wide surface and them cut them out. The cooper continued in this fashion for many years, some even past about 1800 when riveted iron hoops came in vogue. Cedar was a favorite wood as the "wet" barrels were had staves nearly an inch thick. Dry barrels did not have to be as thick and birch and cedar were used. The WHITE COOPER was more likely to be found in the small towns and cities. His handiwork produced measures for grain, firkins, sieves, and boxes; many time using poplar. The boxes were made out of wide strips of bass or poplar shaved quite thin. He rolled them into cylindrical drums. These were riveted in shape with tacks and bands surrounded the ends as hoops. Other tools used by the cooper included the temse, pod auger and kerfing saw. I could find no definitions for these tools but the pod auger was an auger with a handle at the top. © Copyright 2 July 1998, Sandra K. Gorin, All rights reserved, sgorin@glasgow-ky.com Sandi Gorin - 205 Clements Ave., Glasgow, KY 42141-3409 (502)651-9114 or sgorin@glasgow-ky.com A Proud Kentucky Colonel PUBLISHING: http://members.tripod.com/~GorinS/index.html KYRESEARCH: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ky/Tips KYBIOS: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ky/Bios BARREN CO OBITUARIES: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ky/BarrenObits PRAYER&PRAISE: http://www.listbot.com/subscribe/prayerandpraise