Making your own barrels budget style

[Lemur]

Since I am new to the forum and will be looking for additional information about my projects I decided to share how I made 100% DIY barrels and the tricks that I used with the limited resources available. Somehow I wasn’t able to include the photos in the text, so I have just uploaded them at the end.

The goal was to make three 30l barrels that were intended for beer. Later on I decided to use one of them for beer and the rest for whiskey. The whiskey part is jet to come and the first information I will be looking for will be a check of my process.
Just a disclaimer first, I made the barrels three years ago, so don’t fully trust the given information. If any calculation looks suspicious do double check.
The first thing I did and that many of you won’t be able to do without 3D modelling knowledge is that I created a 3D model where I decided what kind of curvature would be the prettiest. Somehow I am unable to find the 3D drawings, but I think you can make them without using fancy modelling equipment. The information you need is how many staves you want to use, than make a measurement of the middle part of a barrel form you want to copy, upper part and in between. Divide the measurements with the number of staves and make a nice sketch of how each should look like. The second parameter is the angle on the sides of the staves. If you would have four and try to make a useless square barrel the angle would be 45 degrees. The function that applies is 360degrees/2/number of staves. I used 16, so the angle was 360/2/16=11,25degrees.

Important bit:
Newer use something like a saw to make the final form. Always use a planer!
Wood needs to be without any imperfections. No white bits or branch holes!

The next thing you will need are the rings. Since I was making my barrels on the cheap side and from the materials I had on hand I just used plane steel. There is no real art in making them. You cut them to the length, make them pretty, make a hole and put a rivet in. Than hammer it out enough so that it looks pretty and that it gets a similar curvature to the barrel. The rings need to fit tight and should be hammered on and not put on, unless you have hydraulics instead of muscles. This takes a lot of time, since you constantly need to check how they fit. Once you fit the rings you will also be able to se if the angle of the staves is correct. If not, you will need to tweak the angle.


When your rings are done, Hammer them on, on one side. Than you can use something distiller most likely have, your pot. You have absolutely no chance if you want to bend hard wood without this step. It will most likely break before it deforms in the shape you want it to be. The trick is, to cook the wood for a few minutes. After that we used a steel rope and a wrench to pull the other side together and add the biggest ring on the other side. The time you have to complete this step is no more than five minutes. After that the wood will dry up again.

At this point you can start making your barrels pretty. If you pull off the smallest ring, you can open the barrel with slowly mowing the big ring upwards. Just watch out, that it won’t fall off, or you could find yourself repeating the cooking process.

After this is done, you can use a hand router to cut out groove where the lids will sit. If the barrels are small, you can make the lid from one piece of wood, if its bigger, you will need to assemble it.

That’s how I make them and on the end the water test. I will make some photos of the finished barrels when I will be returning to Slovenia…

[Lemur]

Two more images, since the limit is 6.... On the first one, the water test and the second is a barrel without it´s lid.

[Samyguy]

Very nice

[thecroweater]

That is very cool, I mess around refurbishing a few barrels from time to time but not seriously contemplated making one from scratch.

[Pesty]

Nice job!

Woodworking is my other hobby.

[cede]

It's really nice, good job !
Really good looking.

Back in France, I saw a guy making barrels and he was assembling them over a fire. If I remember well it's to char the barrels and to stabilize the wood ?
Did you tried that ?

[Lemur]

I have found some finisher barrel photos.

@Cede, I am planning to char two of them for whiskey and leave one as it is for beer.

[fizzix]

I've said it before and will say it again: The skills of people here just blow me away.

[hellbilly007]

Those barrels are sweet. Good job Lemur

[bitter]

Nice Job!!!

What size/ taper you use for the staves? Be interesting to see a top view of the jig with something for scale.

How long it take to make the 3 barrels?

B

[Lemur]

Hey @bitter. It took me a few days to make them. I can’t remember exactly since it was two years ago.

I added an image where the dimensions are written on, they are in millimetres. I can’t guaranty, that I used exactly those dimensions, but they shouldn’t be far off. You can also see the curvature, that was latter cut out.

I have added some photos from the raw wood stage to high grade wood stage, so that you can get a better feeling about the effort.

And I should add, that I am unsure, if the volume was 30l at the end. I would have to measure it. I remember I had to make some compromises because of material size limitations.

[bitter]

Thanks. I might need to give this a go!

B