Need help/advice on building a wooden bucket.

[Joe Hillmann]

I am trying to build a test wooden bucket.  The one I am building right now is pine.  If it works I plan to build a few out of white oak.  I plan to use them for open fermenting beer.

I have all the staves cut out and it clamped together for the first one.  The problem I am having is I don't know how perfect the joints have to be in order for the wood to swell up to be water tight.  Right now there are maybe a dozen spots where I can slip a piece of paper in spots between the joints.  There are maybe another dozen spots where I can't get a piece of paper through but with a light bulb inside I can see light in the cracks.  And there are two spots that maybe have a 1/32 gap. 

The two that have the 1/32 gap I plan to take it apart and fix.  The problem I am having is I don't know if the spots where a sheet of paper will fit through or the ones I can see light through will seal up when I soak it.

Anyone here have any experience who can help me?

[LeeB]

To make the buckets wood be cool and authentic but why not use a plastic bucket and add some pieces of oak to the batch?

[Kbeitz]

You could epoxy coat the inside.

[Joe Hillmann]

Mostly because I don't like plastic.  Also wood has several benefits.  You can boil in wood, you can't in plastic.  So I can use the same container as a kettle, mash tun and a lauter tun then refill it as a fermenter.  It also acts as a better insulator than plastic so it make a better mash tun and fermenter.  And I like sour beers which is hard to produce in glass and plastic in theory the wood container will hold on to yeast from previous batches and over time the population of yeast should balance out with some lactic bacteria as well which will cause sour beers.

And a large medieval style bucket just looks cool.

To make the buckets wood be cool and authentic but why not use a plastic bucket and add some pieces of oak to the batch?

[LeeB]

I never made beer, only wine. I have often thought about making a wooden bucket though.

[Larry]

I would work to improve joinery so staves are a perfect fit.  If your ripping them on a table saw a stock feeder, or rollers would help to keep them against the fence.  A clean up cut on a jointer would also improve fit.  Cutting the angle on a shaper is another option.

The last stave can be a problem and may (probably) have to be hand fitted.

[Joe Hillmann]

You could epoxy coat the inside.

I'd much rather not use any modern material.  I intend to use wooden hoops with wooden pins rather than metal bands.  If it leaks I may consider using beeswax to seal it but that will be for where liquid wicks through the grain but I don't think it will work on cracks between staves.

[Joe Hillmann]

I would work to improve joinery so staves are a perfect fit.  If your ripping them on a table saw a stock feeder, or rollers would help to keep them against the fence.  A clean up cut on a jointer would also improve fit.  Cutting the angle on a shaper is another option.

The last stave can be a problem and may (probably) have to be hand fitted.

I am establishing the compound angle with the table saw from there I am jointing them with a hand plan to straighten them.  After two passes with the hand plane the joint is about as good as I can get it.  If I continue making more passes my angles start to drift.

[thecfarm]

What kind of wood is it?
I can still hear my father tell me on the old cedar shingled home you could see daylight through the roofs. But the rain would make them swell and not leak.

[Savannahdan]

Here's a Woodworkers Journal discussion on the angles for a wooden bucket.  Hope it helps.
http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/correct-angles-wooden-bucket/

[Joe Hillmann]

The one I am making right now is mostly red pine,  there may be a few staves of some type of spruce or balsam as well though. 

What kind of wood is it?
I can still hear my father tell me on the old cedar shingled home you could see daylight through the roofs. But the rain would make them swell and not leak.

[Don_Papenburg]

The joints need to be a very good fit (no Gaps) when tight /new . I think that pine will need a much tighter fit than the white oak . White oak will expand with moisture , more when soaked .  My dad said that when the earth was cold and the summers were HOT while threshing wheat the wheels on the wagons would be loose enough to rattle , they would pull them off at night and soak  them in the horse tank over night and in the morning they had nice tight quiet wheels again.

[Al_Smith]

Most old timey cooperage was made of white oak .

[21incher]

How about cutting a cove in each side of the joint that is a little shallow for a piece of surgical grade silicone tubing and squeezing a piece of the tubing in each joint like a gasket. you could stop the groove short of the ends and never see it.

[red]

Take a sealed wooden barrel and cut it in half.  You have two wooden buckets

[OffGrid973]

Make sure the wood is as dry as possible when you mill it, then when you add the water it will swell and seal all cracks.  My one barrel I left dry after filling it for a while (small 1 gallon thing) and the bands fell off when it dried out.

Make sure you don't use glue or epoxy or anything foreign, it could ruin your mash.

[Don P]

I've made small buckets that my miter saw could cut the staves of in one whack. I called them berry buckets, slack cooperage rather than tight. Yours need to be bigger I'm guessing. Could you make a jig to clamp the staves between a pair of sides that serve as guides, then clamp runners to each side of a small block plane that ride those rails?

[red]

Google Amish made wooden buckets or wooden bucket plans