Cooper’s Tools of the Trade

Read about master cooper Marshall Scheetz->

A Cooper’s side axe. This axe is used for chopping or “listing” barrel staves to a rough shape.  It makes for fast and efficient work. The handle is offset from the blade to prevent abrasion against the wielder’s hand.

 

A cooper’s hammer and hoop driver. A cooper’s hammer weighs about 3 lbs and is used with the driver to drive hoops tightly down onto the cone shape of the bucket or barrel. These are the primary tools of any cooper.

 

Two different types of draw knife. The rounded draw knife, which is known as a hollowing knife, is used for hollowing out the concave curvature on the interior of the staves. The flat draw knife, which is known as a backing knife, is used to cut the convex curvature on the exterior of the staves. Together these knives cut the circular shape into buckets and barrels.

 

A cooper’s hand adze. This is a type of chopping tool used on oak containers to rough out the end to the staves prior to using the sun plane to create a perfectly level surface. The adze is necessary on containers made from hard woods like oak, but not on containers made from soft woods like cedar or cypress.

 

A pair of cooper’s dividers. This is a measuring tool used to determine the size of the heads of the barrel.  A measurement is taken by walking the compass around the inside of the groove to create six equal movements. This sets the distance between the two points as the radius of the circle.
A sun plane or topping plane. After the bucket is assembled the bottom needs to be cut perfectly flat. This tool slides across the edge of the staves cutting a level surface for the croze to ride upon.

 

 

A cooper’s croze. The croze is used to cut a groove around the interior of a bucket or barrel to hold the heads (top/bottom) in place.

 

 

A chiv or howell is a type of plane used to scallop out and level a section of the interior of the barrel just before cutting a groove which will hold the top or bottom in place. Marshall prefers to use the term chiv.

 

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