Some scholars believe that cooperage was known in ancient Greece, but its use was rather limited.

It is assumed that Greek craftsmen made mainly large barrels in which they transported and stored vegetable oil, wine and water. However, more or less specific information about cooperage only refers to the 1st-2nd centuries of our era.

Archaeologists at the site of Staraya Ladoga in the cultural layers dating back to the 8th-10th centuries discovered the remains of cooperage utensils. According to the excavations of ancient Novgorod, one can draw conclusions about the level of development of the cooper's craft in Russia in the 10th-15th centuries.

The dishes of that time were restored according to the found details of cooperage dishes: hoops, rivets and bottoms. After the reconstruction, it became obvious that the Novgorodians used all the main types of cooperage utensils, which became widespread in all subsequent centuries.

The ancient craftsmen perfectly mastered the craft of cooperage, turning the production of jugs and buckets, barrels and tubs, gangs and tubs, mugs, pails and glasses into a real art.

Craft Features

From time immemorial, only men have been coopers. This is due to the fact that the craft requires the use of considerable physical strength.

Cooperage - in its original, true form - is unique in that it does not require anything artificial. Everything can be taken from nature - the cooperage technique implies only wood.

The wooden frame is pulled together with wooden hoops. Without any glue, the hoops securely compress the frame rivets and ensure tightness. Nothing metal is required - no nails, no screws. Any connection can be made on wooden dowels.

Under the product assembled according to the cooperage technique, one can understand any product, the skeleton of which consists of planks-rivets smoothly joined to each other, pulled together by hoops.

Wood

Important in the cooper business was the use of that other wood. The craftsmen took into account the type of wood, humidity, growth conditions, harvesting season and other conditions. Oak was considered one of the most valuable species.

Coopers, mastering the instrument to perfection, subtly understood and felt the plasticity of wood. Knowing the different qualities of certain species, they skillfully used them in the manufacture of various types of wooden utensils.

It is necessary that the wood is well pricked, processed by cutting (planed, sawn), be sufficiently elastic and viscous, and easily bend when steaming.

From deciduous trees, the wood of which is used for cooperage staves, oak, hazel, linden, alder, birch and poplar are widely used, and from conifers - pine, cedar spruce, larch and juniper. In the southern regions, beech and chestnut are also used.

Oak

This is the best material. Oak wood is cut with great difficulty, but it pricks well. Distinguished by great elasticity, after steaming it becomes very flexible and easily bends, and this is a necessary quality in the manufacture of barrels.

In addition, dense and heavy oak wood dries well, warps and cracks a little. It is filled with special preservative substances - tills, which protect it from damage by putrefactive microbes.

Oak wood is not afraid of exposure to moisture - on the contrary, immersed in water, it becomes even stronger.

Aspen

Staves from its wood were mostly used for dishes intended for various pickles and pickles. It was noticed that cabbage, fermented in an aspen tub, retains its whiteness and elasticity until the hottest days of spring.

The tendency of aspen wood to swell is considered in some cases a negative phenomenon, but not in cooperage. It is thanks to the swelling that the aspen rivets are closed by the edges so tightly that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them.

Linden

Due to its softness and uniformity, linden wood is well cut in all directions, it easily splits both along the layers and in the radial direction.

It hardly warps and cracks very little. One of its most important properties is slight shrinkage or, as experts say, resistance to loss of volume. The lime tub, which has lain empty for almost the whole summer in anticipation of the harvest, practically does not dry out.

Mastery Secrets

Imagine that you have entered a cooper's workshop at the moment when the cooper is jointing the edges of finished staves. It may seem that he violates all the rules adopted in carpentry: when planing, the jointer, fixed upwards with the sole, remains motionless, while the riveting held in the hands of the master moves along it.

But it is this original jointing method that is one of those "secrets" without knowing which one should not undertake the manufacture of even the simplest tub. Or another operation: stuffing a hoop.

It will take a few minutes for an experienced cooper to do this. With the help of special clips, he will deftly attach three rivets to a metal hoop and put the resulting tripod on a workbench. Then, with extraordinary speed, all the other rivets will be inserted into it.

And soon on the workbench, instead of a tripod, there is already a skeleton of a tub. In addition to these, there are many other "secrets" that have been verified for centuries.

Nowadays

Cooperage craft has not lost its relevance. Natural barrels and other items of cooper's utensils and furniture cannot be replaced by any modern technology. In winemaking, the desired results can only be achieved in dishes made from properly selected wood.

To store oil - vegetable and butter, beekeeping products, pickles, pickles, in baths and saunas - barrel products are needed everywhere.

Engaged in cooperage now, mostly private craftsmen, small artels, individual entrepreneurs. Workshops are located throughout Russia, where the necessary materials are available.

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Useful information

Cooper
cooperage

The oldest samples

Such samples of Russian cooperage utensils were discovered during archaeological excavations. Fragments of barrels, tubs, buckets, jugs, tubs, pails, gangs, tubs and other cooperage products were found. All of them are preserved in peasant economy and were widely used until the middle of the 20th century.

Craft in everyday life

Most often, coopers combined their craft with traditional peasant occupations. They worked mainly in winter, starting from Pokrov. Some craftsmen were engaged in cooperage all year round, with the exception of three to four months in the summer during harvesting and haymaking.

Hollow dishes

With her, perhaps, everything began in Russia. It was used to store oil and all kinds of bulk products, such as flour and grain, as well as for collecting honey. Sooner or later, but deep through cracks appeared on the walls of the hives and dishes. And then the first step towards cooperage was taken - the hoop was invented. Dugouts and hollows, in order to prevent cracking, began to be pulled together with all kinds of bundles, rope, wire. Later, wooden and metal hoops appeared, which became classic.

Oak application

Oak staves were used to make tubs for pickling cabbage and pickling cucumbers, tubels for storing bacon and corned beef. Apples soaked in oak tubs remained strong and tasty until spring. Where special strength was required from cooperage, oak was indispensable. A better well bucket than one made of oak, forced to work in the most severe conditions, is hardly to be found. Oak wood also has one more unusual property - it speeds up the leaven of the dough.

Linden application

Cooper's utensils made of linden staves keep food well. It is also important that at the same time it does not give them any unpleasant smell and taste. The best honey is in linden barrels: it keeps its aroma and original freshness for a long time. Linden cooperage containers are considered the best for storing and transporting butter, which does not go bitter for a very long time. And for the transportation of such a delicacy as red and black caviar, linden barrels are simply irreplaceable. Linden wood is an excellent material for portable travel utensils intended for water and all kinds of soft drinks: flasks, baklags, lagoons and the like.

hoops

Of great importance is the wood from which the hoops are made. It so happened that it is mainly the wood of garden trees. such as: lilac, irga, bird cherry, sweet cherry, linden bark, willow, oak, ash, elm, maple and hazel.

barrel grass

Cooperage utensils, be it a tub or a barrel, sometimes require additional refinement. It happens that the master is not sure that the staves are fitted to each other with sufficient accuracy, then the barrel grass helps him out. Basically, these are herbs with a coarse fibrous structure. Such as cattail, reeds and others. Quite often, finished cooperage utensils are said to flow in chimes. This means that there are gaps in the joints between the staves of the core and the bottom. They can be eliminated with the help of specially prepared barrel herbs.

Not only barrels

Coopers produce not only barrels and dishes. There is also cooperage furniture. These are round and oval tables, stools, ottomans and banquettes, bedside tables and other furniture made using cooperage technique. All of them are united by the fact that the tree is not sawn into the necessary parts, then assembled and glued together, as in carpentry. Cooperage are made according to a special cooperage technology, which provides for manual processing of wood and fastening of rivets with hoops without glue. Thus, this furniture can be considered 100% eco-friendly. It doesn't even have nails.

For a long time my father was engaged in carpentry: he made various carved chairs, doors, tables, and so on. All this was not the main income - it existed as a third-party, not a big income, a part-time job. But among the pile of senselessly stored things in the barn, he was haunted by two old, almost collapsed barrels, with rusty bondage. For a long time, he himself did not understand that they were haunting him, but somewhere deep the thought matured - questions were ripening about how these magnificent products are made ... Of course, even with Soviet childhood, he found cooperage workshops, where machine tools, but those barrels from the barn are still older and do not look like a machine tool.

Time passed, I grew, and the barrels all stood. And somehow by chance I mentioned them to the priest, and everything seems to be on that. Later I arrived as a lady after a long departure - no barrels!!! And it means that mommy has a tub of flour and is so awkward and oblique (oh, sorry I didn’t take a picture). I went into the workshop of my father, who dismantled the barrels and began to study ... Such amateur performance did not give any special results, as the tub showed.

Then a little later, we went to my paternal grandmother and asked: does she know what? And she told us about one elderly cooper who lives with them in the village of Zorkaltsevo in the Tomsk region and sent us to go to him.

In general, we met with this sweet "grandfather", who, being quite a young man, studied a craft with one cooper, so that he had to earn something in order to feed a family in which he was the only man.
We took him to visit us, showed him the workshop, and made the first barrel together, under the guidance of an old cooper. He told us all the secrets of handicraft and gave us ancient tools, similar to those used in Russia.
We have taken important and necessary moments of the manufacturing process, removed those that are not relevant for handmade in our time. We prepared wood for riveting (the so-called planks that make up a cooper's product), which turned out to be rather difficult to harvest, since this kind of harvesting is quite lengthy and has several stages of long-term drying.

Generally, total amount the cost of procuring the material amounted to 20,000 rubles, the amount includes: 14 tr. - 1 m * 3 Cedar (with primary drying), metal strips for bondage for 2 tr, to them the primer and black paint 2 tr. and the rest of the sum is made up of riveting and travel expenses.

Using this material, we have 12 products. Thus, on average, one cooper's creation costs in the region of 1500 rubles. - up to 3000 r. (if it is not a font) excluding labor and wood aging.

To begin with, we put up a little price tags a little higher than the cost ones. For example, a barrel of 30 liters. cost 4000r. (i.e. + 1000 to the costly price tag).

That is how my father and I started our business. Slowly, we began to gain fame in narrow circles, orders began to arrive, the business turned out to be quite profitable. Increasing the pace, we have prepared a large enough manual labor number of products and decided to arrange their sale. Just in time to prepare international festival"Ax Festival", where various artisans and craftsmen exhibited their chic products at the fair.

We stopped in the very first days and by the 3rd day of sales we had nothing left!!! The costs amounted to 25,000 rubles, and the net profit was 30 thousand rubles. (taking into account the fact that we raised the price tags for the holiday). In addition to this, we gave out a lot of business cards and provided ourselves with orders for a long time. Feeling the return, we were even more drawn into this matter and we created the VK group.
And at the moment our price list looks like this:

From the list of these products, the most popular can be distinguished, they include: Tubs, gangs and steamers. Tubs are great for pickling (cucumbers, cabbage, mushrooms) and storing water - everything in the tub gets an unusual pleasant taste and aroma; gangs and steamers buy various sauna stores. Barrels, of course, are also often taken, but still less often than those previously mentioned, since there will be fewer people who make wines and insist cognacs. And as for the fonts, they are often interested, but they rarely take it, since the price is not small and many are embarrassed by the delivery of such bulky products.

As a result, cooperage brings good income and aesthetic pleasure.
I would like to tell a lot more directly about the process of making cooperage products, and specifically about barrels, because its creation is the most complex and interesting process out of a number of others, but you can read and watch all this in our group.

So far, we have been talking about woodworking tools used not only by coopers, but also by other woodworkers - carpenters, joiners, turners, carvers. By the presence of these tools in the workshop, it is difficult to judge the profession of its owner. But there are tools that you will find only in a cooper's workshop - a circular hunchback, a morning man, a tension, a heel and a cooper's brace. The circular humpback is used by coopers for planing the inner surface of the cooper's utensils along the edge where the bottom is supposed to be cut. He prepares (levels) the edges of the staves before cutting the chimes into which the bottom is inserted.

A circular humpback consists of a block, which is a part of a cylinder, the side surface of which is the sole of the planer. In this case, the knife has a straight blade. The sole may also be rounded at the edges, that is, have a spherical or end surface. Accordingly, the knife blade of such a circular planer will be rounded, like a fillet or sherhebel. Chips generated during planing are removed through a hole cut in the side and fall down. Unlike the carpenter's humpback planer, it has a guide board that slides along the end of the cooperage during work and ensures a constant width of the surface to be cleaned. The diameter of the sole of a circular humpback depends on the inner diameter of the core of the cooperage.

Circular cooper humpback and how to work with them

On the surface cleaned by the humpback, narrow grooves are cut - chimes, into which the bottom is inserted. The tool used to cut them is called a chisel. Utornik is somewhat reminiscent of a circular hunchback. It also has a guide bar, which during operation rests against the ends of the rivets and slides along them. The lower part of the tool - a block, having a cylindrical surface, slides over the rivets from the inside. Two through holes located perpendicular to each other are hollowed out in the tutennik. A movable bar with a steel cutter fixed in it is inserted into one, and a clamping wedge is inserted into the second, with the help of which a bar with a cutter extended to different heights is fixed in the desired position. Thanks to this, it is possible to cut chimes at different distances from the edge. The design of this type of morning time has come down to our days from ancient times due to the simplicity of the design.

On the left: a two-handed morning clock and its device (a - block; b - movable bar; c - cutter; d - guide; e - clamping wedge). Right: cutting a morning groove with a one-handed chime

It was not difficult for a non-professional cooper to make such a morning time dish, who made dishes only for the needs of his family. Professional coopers, along with similar tools, also used more advanced chimes, with which the chime groove was cut with knives. One knife cut through the wood to a certain depth, the other cut it at an angle. As a result, a groove was formed with neatly trimmed walls.

In dishes that are small in size, as well as oval bottoms, chimes are cut with a one-handled chime. A one-handed chime is entirely cut out of one bar. The bar is divided into three parts. A handle is cut out of one part, a guide ledge is cut out of the middle part, and a block with a sole having a cylindrical surface is cut out of the third. A through hole is cut in the sole, into which the cutter is inserted. Before cutting the chimes, the frame of the cooperage utensils is placed on the goats fixed on the bench. The cooper sits down on a bench and presses the skeleton to the goats with a belt. With one hand he leads the morning time, with the other, after loosening the belt, he turns the skeleton towards him. This process continues until the chimes of the required depth are obtained.

Bondage pull. Techniques for pulling a metal hoop onto the frame of cooper's utensils

The next tool, which you will meet only in the cooper's workshop, is tension. With the help of tightness, they put on (stretch) metal and wooden chime hoops on the frame of cooperage utensils. It consists of a wooden block with a handle on one end and a metal hook on the other. When put on a barrel or tub, the hoop is hooked with a hook, and the end of the wooden block rests against the edge of the dish. (Previously, the skeleton is pulled together with a rope or a strong rope with the help of a gate.) By pressing the handle, part of the hoop is pulled over the edge of the rivets. Then the tightness is moved along the side of the dish and in the same way all other sections of the hoop are pulled onto the frame.

The preload shown in our drawings is designed to work with small utensils. The wooden part of it is carved from oak, birch and beech wood. The hook is made of a steel strip 2-2.5 mm thick. For large tensions, hooks are made of steel 4-5 mm thick.

Metal, wooden and combined heels. Below: stuffing the hoop with a wooden heel with a metal head A heel is "a wedge, a blunt chisel, a half-tube for stuffing, hoop drafts." This is how V. I. Dal defines this purely cooper's instrument. In short and exact definition contains information about various types this ingenious tool.

To fit metal hoops, coopers simply used an old, worn or broken chisel, in which a shallow groove was made at the end with a file. Thanks to him, the heel does not jump off the hoop during operation. A half-tube heel was also used for stuffing and upsetting steel hoops. Its manufacture was exceptionally simple.

The iron tube was flattened at one end and a small groove was bored on the striker with a file and the heel is ready. But such a heel did not satisfy every cooper: when struck with a hammer, it vibrated. To dampen the vibration, the tube was sawn and the flattened end was put on a wooden rod on one side, and the ring on the other side. Such a heel has served well for many years.

For stuffing and upsetting wooden hoops, the heels, which were discussed above, are no longer suitable, since metal strikers crumple and split the wood. Therefore, the heel for wooden hoops must necessarily have a wooden striker. The simplest heel is made from oak, birch, beech, maple or rowan bar or round wood, which are cut off on both sides so that a wedge is formed. The impact part of a wooden heel may split over time. To prevent splitting, a metal ring is put on it. It is also important that the heel fits comfortably in the hand. To this end, its handle is given a rounded shape with a slight interception between the handle and the striker.

Treatment of the inner surface of the tub with a bracket. Making a staple from a steel strip

To level the inner surfaces of cooperage utensils, especially at the joints of staves, coopers use special cooperage staples. Unlike the stapler, the stapler has one handle. Thanks to this, it can remove the thinnest chips in hard-to-reach places inside narrow cooperage utensils. The scythe is made of tool steel (you can use a scythe or saw blade). From an annealed strip 2 mm thick, a blank is cut with a chisel. The thin long ends of the workpiece (shanks) are bent in relation to the scraper blade by 80°. Then the blank of the staple is bent in half on a cylindrical mandrel. The tails are connected and wrapped with steel or copper wire. Having sharpened the blade, the stapler is hardened and mounted on a wooden handle. A fairly good staple can be made from a semicircular file. It resembles a spoon cutter, the arcuate blade of which is inclined to the handle at an angle of 15-20°.

Processing the inner surface of the vat with a stapler (drawing from a Japanese engraving of the 19th century). Making a staple from a semicircular file. Below: A curviline bracket with a handle that takes advantage of the natural curve of a tree trunk.

The cooper's utensils are laid lengthwise on an ordinary bench before being processed with a scraper. A rope or belt with loops at the ends is thrown over it from above. The cooper sits astride a bench and puts his legs into the loops. Pulling the rope, he, like a vise, holds the cooper's dishes on the bench in a certain position. When the rivets are aligned in one area, the belt is loosened, the dishes are rotated and fixed in this position. This is repeated until all rivets are completely processed. When moving towards itself, the stapler removes the thinnest shavings: periodically the accumulated shavings are poured out of the cooper's dishes.

To process large cooperage utensils, such as vats, the cooper has to climb into it along with the stapler. Just such a moment was depicted in the engraving by the Japanese artist Hokusai, who lived in the last century.

In addition to the tools that have been described, in cooperage, in the course of work, a hacksaw, a hammer saw, a two-handed and bow saw, a circular saw, a drill and a brace, straight and semicircular chisels, a mallet, a jigsaw, a hammer, a chisel, and punches are used. , files, metal scissors and other carpentry and locksmith tools.

To measure, mark and check the accuracy of manufacturing parts of cooperage utensils, various measuring tools and templates are used: a ruler, a triangle, compasses, a cloth (tailor's) meter and a cooperage bracket.

The success of the work largely depends on the cooper's brace. With its help, the cooper controls the curvature of the convex surface of the riveting, determines the bevels of the side edges and the width of the rivets at the ends and in the bunch (in the middle). The cooper's brace is the most common pattern used in cooperage for many centuries. For each type of cooperage utensils, they make their own bracket. The more diverse it is, the more extensive the set of staples at the cooper. Their dimensions depend on the size of the hoop ware, and the division into them depends on the difference in the ratios of the circles in the narrowest and widest parts. The shape of the barrel is conditionally divided into two truncated cones with a common base in its middle (bunch). Tubs, tubs, buckets and other cooperage utensils with straight frets have the same geometric shape. The proximity of the form makes it possible to use templates built according to a single principle in the manufacture of tubs and barrels. Therefore, let's look at specific example how the calculation of the cooperage bracket for the barrel is performed. The most common barrels, in which the outer diameters at the ends are less than the diameter in the middle by 1/5, 1/6 and 1/7 parts.

Let's assume that we need to make a bracket for a barrel, in which the diameters at the ends are 1/3 less than the diameter in the middle. First, a template is drawn on paper, and only then cut out and pasted onto a thin board or plywood. An arc is drawn on a sheet of paper with a radius corresponding to the largest circumference of the barrel (the length of the arc is made equal to approximately 1/10 of the circumference). This working part template, all other contours of the bracket can be drawn by hand, arbitrarily.

The principle of calculation and manufacture of templates

The cut-out paper silhouette is glued onto a plank or plywood and cut out along the contour with a jigsaw or cut out with a knife. With such a template, it is already possible to determine the direction and angle of the bevel of the side edge, as well as the curvature of the convex surface of the riveting. But this is not enough for work - you need to apply divisions to the template, which would allow you to accurately determine the width of the riveting at the ends and in the middle. Point A is marked at one end of the arc, point O is marked at the other.

The segment of the arc AO will correspond to the width of the middle part of the widest riveting. Its width at the ends will be !D less. The arc AO is divided into five parts with a compass, then 1/5 part is set aside from point A and point B is obtained. Then the segment BO is also divided into five parts - point C is obtained. The remaining divisions are obtained in the same way. It is not difficult to understand that each subsequent segment is 1/5 less than the previous one. One more regularity should be remembered: if the width of the middle part of the riveting is equal to the segment AO, then its width at the ends will be equal to the segment BO - and so on for each riveting.

Coopers usually letter designations they don’t put on the template, instead they make thin notches with a knife, and remove the glued paper from the surface of the tree sandpaper or a bracket. Determining the width of the narrow parts of the riveting, each time they retreat to the right by one division. But the width of the measured riveting does not always correspond to any notch. Its edge may also be between the notches, therefore, in order to make the scale more accurate, short notches are also applied between long notches. The template will become more convenient if the notches are applied on the reverse side.

There is an even less old and more accurate template. They can determine the width of the riveting in centimeters. Therefore, it is clear that it could only appear with the introduction of the metric system in our country. On one side of this template, the arcuate cut corresponds to the larger diameter of the cooperage utensils, and on the other, to the smaller one. A large arc is divided into centimeters, for example 7 cm, as shown in the figure. On a small arc, a segment is laid off 1/5 part less, that is, 5 cm 6 mm, and divided into 7 parts.

Thus, every seventh part on the small arc will be equal to 8 mm, that is, 1/5 less than the corresponding division on the large arc. You can also calculate the template for any cooperage ware in a graphical way. Two arcs are drawn from one center on a sheet of paper, one of which corresponds to a larger diameter of the dish, and the other to a smaller one. A large arc is divided into 6, 7, 8 ... centimeters, depending on the estimated size of the widest riveting. Through each division, rays are drawn from the center, which divide the small arc into the corresponding number of parts that are in a certain proportional ratio to the segments on the large arc (1/5, 1/7, 1/6, 1/7, etc.).

There may be some other (arbitrary) relations obtained practically after the development of the form of cooperage. Rays from the center indicate the direction of cuts of narrow edges.

Peculiar patterns are carefully cut out of the drawing. Each of them must necessarily have a part of the arc and the beam. Patterns are glued to plywood or a thin plank of homogeneous wood. hardwood(linden, birch, aspen, beech). The plank is carefully cut along the drawn lines. The template is given a comfortable and attractive shape. In this case, the parts of the template were arranged so that the silhouette of a fish appeared almost randomly. And oddly enough, it is this circumstance that makes the template much more convenient.

The fact is that sometimes it takes a lot of time to make out: which side to measure the wide part of the riveting, which one - the narrow one? Here the visual image simplifies this task. It is easy to remember that the bracket located on the back of the fish measures only the wide part of the rivets, and the narrow one located on the abdomen. To further emphasize the difference between large and small staples, one half of the template can be painted in a bright color, such as red. Bright coloring allows you to quickly find a template that may accidentally be lost in chips and shavings. So the attractive appearance of the instrument is not decoration at all.

Using this template is easy. Having measured, for example, a barrel stave in the middle, remember the number corresponding to its width. In the figure, the width of the riveting is 5 cm. The template is rotated and, using the divisions on the small bracket, mark the width for riveting at the end - it will be equal to 5 divisions on the small bracket. Having made marks with a pencil, they cut off excess wood. But how to make rivets using a template will be discussed a little later.

Homemade thicknesser and drawing a level line on the surface of the cooperage

The edges of the assembled cooperage frame are filed along a line drawn by a special thickness gauge. It consists of a stand with a vertical bar fixed on it, along which a block with a metal scriber or pencil can move freely. In the block, between the pencil and the vertical bar, a socket is hollowed out, into which a wedge is inserted, which simultaneously fixes the block and the pencil in a certain position. For the same purpose as the thickness gauge, some coopers use a sharp rod driven into the wall at a given distance from the floor. The skeleton of the cooper's product is leaned against the tip of the scriber and rotated around its axis - a clear risk appears, going strictly along the perimeter. Although this method is quite acceptable, it is still better to use a universal thickness gauge. To make the thickness gauge stand more stable, a lead washer is placed on it. You can pour it in a tin can. In order for the disk to have a rectangular hole in the middle, a bar fashioned from clay is placed in the jar.

Cooper is engaged in the creation of high-quality barrels and containers made of wood, designed to store various types of drinks, food products, chemical raw materials. He also takes part in the dressing of ship masts. The profession is rare, specialists are in demand in every corner of the world. The profession is suitable for those who are interested in labor and farming (see the choice of profession for interest in school subjects).

Short description

Bondarism is folk craft whose history goes back centuries. Since ancient times, coopers have been manufacturing barrels that were used to store and transport fish, meat, various types of fat, fuel, vegetables and other organic and non-organic products and substances. Today, wood products are being replaced by containers made of metal, plastic, glass and other materials, but barrels still continue to be used in the food and beverage industry. Natural wood does not enter into chemical reactions with liquids, which makes it the best solution for storing various types of cognacs, ciders and other types of natural alcohol, as well as fish and seafood, soft drinks, chemical products.

The cooper is responsible for the creation of the barrels, controlling all stages of production. He is well versed in different types of wood, can pick up quality raw materials, assemble a barrel or repair in case of a leak. The profession belongs to the category of handicrafts, there are few specialists, training is carried out at specialized courses or directly at industries, factories that need the services of coopers. This specialty can be chosen by people who are familiar with woodworking firsthand: carpenters, woodworkers, carpenters and others.

Features of the profession

• dressing barrels and other products for the creation of which wood is used: tubs, tubs, tubs, gangs and others;
• quality control of the materials used;
• calculation of the capacity of products, drawing up design drawings;
• manual and mechanical uncorking, capping of wooden containers filled with finished products;
• checking the quality of each barrel, identifying defects, carrying out repairs on site or in the workshop. If it is impossible to perform repairs, then the specialist draws up an act, writing off the rejected barrel for disposal;
• steaming, drying, roasting, heat treatment and other work necessary to create a high-quality barrel, clean it and sterilize it.

Each cooper is required to have minimal knowledge about the properties and species of different types of wood, adhesive compositions, processing agents that protect the tree from rapid destruction. Therefore, the specialist must receive a basic technical education, closely related to woodworking.

Pros and cons of the profession

pros

1. There are very few specialists who have chosen this area of ​​training, so they never have problems finding employment.
2. Opportunity to work both for the company and for yourself, creating barrels for private customers, as well as decorative items for interior or landscape design.
3. Short training period.
4. The profession is in demand at any time of the year.
5. Due to the rarity of the profession, specialists can dictate their own terms of cooperation.
6. Experienced coopers are provided with orders for many years to come.
7. Continuous professional development.

Minuses

1. Interaction with varnishes, adhesives and wood, during the processing of which fine dust and chips appear, leads to the development of diseases of the respiratory system, allergic reactions.
2. The work is difficult, associated with strong physical exertion.
3. Low salaries in this segment.
4. There may be problems with training, because coopers are practically not trained at courses or at institutes. Therefore, one has to look for a master who can take a student, or other ways of gaining knowledge.
5. Completion of the assigned tasks in a short time, any mistake leads to the deterioration of a huge batch finished products.

Important Personal Qualities

The profession is predominantly male, because fragile girls will not be able to move massive elements of barrels or finished products. Specialists must have the following personal qualities:

• activity,
• diligence,
• good memory,
• ability to work repetitively
• confidence,
• purposefulness.

Do not choose cooperage for people who suffer from allergic reactions, have poor eyesight or hearing.

Cooper training

To begin with, a student who has firmly decided to become a cooper needs to get a profession in the field of woodworking by enrolling in a specialized secondary educational institution. After graduating from college, it is worth working in the profile for several years. Specialist with skill practical work with wood, can gain additional knowledge by adopting the experience of a professional cooper through training courses at the enterprise. The average training time is 3-4 years, large quantity A young cooper acquires knowledge and skills during practical work.

Carpentry school Rubankov

Training is conducted in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the school offers a solid number of training programs: ordinary and classic carpentry, wood carving, production of individual furniture items. Classes are held in the evening, the minimum cost is 13 thousand rubles, depending on the complexity and the chosen training program.

School of Masters Kalpa-Vriksha, Moscow

The course is suitable for people who want to learn or already know how to create wood products with their own hands. During the course they will receive a large number of necessary knowledge about carpentry, the period of attendance is 14 months. On the school website you can find learning programs for adults and children.

Place of work

Coopers work at companies and enterprises specializing in the industrial extraction of fish and seafood, the production of various types of drinks, engaged in chemicals. Coopers are also in demand in the agricultural sector, where barrels and other wooden containers are used for feeding farm animals, harvesting and other tasks. A true professional can open a personal workshop, creating beautiful items with or without carvings for sale.

Wage

Due to the rarity of this profession, accurate level statistics wages no. Minimum bet, which a cooper-capper can count on, starts from 18,000-21,000 rubles. The salary may be higher, depending on the place of work (the popularity of the company, the volume of finished products, sales), qualifications, personal qualities.

Salary as of 04/15/2019

Russia 18300—60000 ₽

Moscow 30000—70000 ₽

Professional knowledge

1. Fundamentals of cooperage.
2. Types of wood used for the production of cooperage products.
3. Techniques for processing materials and finished products, coatings used in production.
4. Automation systems, production tools.
5. Rules for the repair, cleaning, sterilization, uncorking and capping of products.
6. Safety engineering.

Remoteness from civilization, proximity to pristine nature, lack of electricity and public transport ... On the one hand, these are factors that make life difficult in our village But it was they that at the same time served as prerequisites for the development of crafts, for recreating bit by bit the technologies of manual labor forgotten in our time.

In Zharovsk there are masters of wicker and straw weaving, skillful joiners and carpenters, and talented wood carvers. But I had a heart for the craft of a cooper, which I have been mastering for almost 19 years, along with other masters (In the village in different years six experienced craftsmen worked, now three are working).

To summarize, under the product assembled according to the cooperage technique, one can understand any product, the skeleton of which consists of planks-rivets smoothly joined to each other, tightened with hoops. All products presented here have such a basis. If you remove the hoops from such a product, then it will look something like in this photo (Here you see a disassembled frame into which the bottom has not yet been inserted).

Cooperage products are not only tubs for salting and bath utensils. The range of application of cooperage technique is unusually diverse. Having set himself the goal of making one product of every possible kind, the cooper could work all his life. Using cooperage technology, it is possible to make products round or oval, with a capacity of 100 ml (miniature wooden cups, salt shakers, vases) to several thousand liters (cedar baths). There is a whole trend of cooperage furniture, which is simply a limitless field for creativity.
The title photo depicts cooperage products of various masters at one of the exhibitions in the KIC (Cultural and Historical Center) museum in Krasnoyarsk.

The material for our products is Siberian cedar ( Pinus sibirica), aged 300 years and older. Age is roughly determined by the diameter of the trunk. It is believed that a diameter of 70 cm corresponds to the age of the tree 250-300 years.

The diameter of this trunk in the butt is 112 cm.

For the sake of our craft, we do not cut down trees. We use the butt parts of already sawn cedars, rejected by loggers. No more than 2-3 chocks of 80-100 cm in height are used, starting from the butt. We prick these chocks by hand, thus obtaining chipped blanks - rivets.
In cooperage, it is important to use only chipped material. In sawn blanks, the fibers are inevitably cut, which leads to a sharp deterioration in quality and a decrease in the durability of future cooperage utensils.

We put the riveted riveting in piles and dry it on the street for at least a year.

In the process of manufacturing the product, a two-stage long-term drying takes place in a wood-burning oven. As a result, the moisture content of the wood is approximately 5%. Such drying provides very high performance of products that, with proper care, practically do not dry out, and in which it is not necessary to constantly keep water.

The cooperage product, pulled together with wooden hoops, acquires a very special, incomparable flavor. The relief of the wooden hoop, its color and structure, the shape of the spike lock allow compositionally varying the appearance of the product, sometimes turning it into a true work of art. At the same time, the product does not lose its functionality at all! We make wooden hoops from bird cherry. Its wood has both the necessary flexibility and the necessary strength. Branches and shoots go to small products, trunks of young trees go to medium and large ones. The coupler with bird cherry hoops is quite reliable, which allows them to tie even such large products as cedar bathtubs. A correctly cut spike lock is self-tightening, that is, the tighter the hoop is stuffed, the stronger the spike connection. In addition, wooden hoops are usually stuffed with nests of 2-3 pieces, which makes such a screed even more reliable.

The manufacture of a wooden hoop is a laborious and time-consuming process, which, moreover, cannot be mechanized. That is why (and not because of supposedly greater reliability!) In the last century, coopers almost everywhere switched to metal ones. In the last decade, the situation has changed somewhat, and cooperage products on wooden hoops are gaining more and more popularity. However, large containers, like fonts or bathtubs, other manufacturers still prefer to tighten with metal hoops. In this sense, our cedar bathtubs on wooden hoops are a real exclusive, based primarily on the important features of the preparation and pre-drying of the material.

In the picture - a bathtub with a figured edge with a capacity of 500 liters. Length – 150 cm. Width – 85 cm. Height – 80 cm.

Various bath utensils are in relentless demand.

Of the numerous options for tubs, tubs for pickling with a capacity of 20 - 60 liters are very popular.

The old Russian system of oppression eliminates the need to look for a stone to put pressure on the circle and saves the usable volume of the tub.

And this is a thick-walled tub-thermos.

In the heat of the mowing, it keeps the coolness of well water for a long time.

Pirozhochnitsa - decoration of a large table.

A cooper's bread box stylized as a bariltse (decorative barrel for wine).

As you can see, the bread box is quite roomy.

Cooper's stool with sawn carving.

Cooperage stool with inserted elements made in the tatting technique.

Combination of two different techniques, male and female crafts give the product a special harmony.

Mini-set of two stools and an ottoman with ornamental sawn carving.

Another piece of cooperage furniture is a round bedside table.

The protruding edges of the staves, typical for barrels, create very convenient sides that prevent small objects from falling off the nightstand.

To make such a product not only round, but also oval, 100-120 cm long, and even higher, while it can have from one to four compartments, both with doors and without them. Drawers can be inserted into these compartments, each of which will also be made using the cooperage technique, or you can leave simple shelves. Three of these products different sizes can be stacked on top of each other like sections of composite cabinets, getting something like a composite bookcase or chest of drawers.

Cooperage eccentric table-cabinet. The tabletop is somewhat pushed forward in relation to the upper plane of the core (the geometric centers of the oval of the core and the tabletop do not coincide). This is done for maximum seating comfort at the table.

In this report, I could only briefly talk about cooperage from Zharovsk. Those who want to learn more are welcome to visit our website www.zharbond.ru dedicated to the revival and development of cooperage art. There you can:

See other models of cooperage products;

Get in touch with the work of our "cooperage Lefty" Sergei Shumansky - a master in the manufacture of subminiature cooperage products that have no analogues in the world;

To get acquainted with the main technological stages of the manufacturing process of products;

Learn about the specific hand tools needed in a cooper's workshop;

And also find a lot of different and useful information one way or another connected with cooperage.