Cooper’s Tools of the Trade

A cooper’s hammer and hoop driver. A cooper’s hammer averages about 3lbs and is used in conjunction with the driver to drive hoops tightly down onto the cone shape of the bucket or barrel. These are some of the primary tools of any cooper.
Two different types of draw knife. The rounded draw knife is called a hollowing knife and is used for hollowing out the concave curvature on the interior of the staves. The flat draw knife is called a backing knife and 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 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. Marshall uses the term “chiv” more often. It 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.

 

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