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103K views 457 replies 49 participants last post by  stefang 
#1 ·
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CONTENTS OF THIS BLOG
I am glad to see that there are many others besides myself who are interested in ancient woodworking. In this first blog of the series I will suggest how the group can communicate and function efficiently , timing for completion of the various steps, What materials can be used and alternative methods for those of you who are mainly interested in the finished bucket and/or just don't have the time to make or use the shop made tools.

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND FOR THIS PROJECT?
The idea and background is laid out in my last blog here http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/20546. Here once again is what we are making.

"Photobucket"

FOR THOSE MAKING THE TOOLS
As mentioned before I hope as many as possible will make their own main tools for this project, but I want to allay any fears about either the tools or the materials. With that in mind alternatives and philosophy are covered below.

Personally, I don't want to be TOO obsessive about using ONLY the ancient type of tools. For example I plan to use my cordless drill for making holes and my Stanley handplane for angling the edges of the stave's and also to round the convex surface on the outside of the stave's. I also plan to use machine made dowels and shape them by hand or chuck them in my drill and sandpaper them to shape. I will also use any other tools not specifically mentioned.

I plan to make the tools below with the help of my machine tools. They can be made with a bandsaw or a tablesaw or your machine of choice.

"Photobucket"

FOR THOSE NOT MAKING THE TOOLS
From some of the comments, it is clear that some are worried about the tools part, so I have some alternatives for those folks.You can make this authentic bucket with your machine tools if you wish. That said, I won't be giving any details on how to use your machines. This is just to avoid confusion and to keep my own workload at a reasonable level.

1. Stave's have to be concave on the inside. This work can be done on your tablesaw using the 'cove' cutting
method. Info about this method can be found by searching the net or maybe your old woodworking books.
This eliminates the need for the shopmade handplane with the rounded bottom.

2. The dado (groove) which holds the bottom in place can probably be done with a router, but you will need to
construct a curved jig for this to match the concave inside shape of the stave's in order to insure an even
depth of cut. You may have a better way I haven't thought of.

3. The binding lever has to be made as it is necessary to force the rather tight bindings over and around the
bucket. I will be providing a plan for this tool, which is very simple and quick to make.

4. the outside of the stave's have to be shaped convex to match the
inside concave shape. A handplane or spoke shave is ideal for this job, but it could also be done with a power
sander for example.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS NEEDED BY ALL PARTICIPANTS
You will likely need the following:

1. Flat handplane for the 'cooper' angles on the stave's, alternatively your tablesaw with blade tilted to the correct
angle(s).
2. A handrill, electric or not for the dowel holes
3. Marking pencil to mark out the position of dowels, etc.
4. A compass to draw a circle of the circumference of the bucket and the circumference of the bottom.
5. A ruler to draw radii from the center of the bucket circumference.

MATERIALS
There were also some concerns about getting the materials needed for this project. Don't worry! You can use just about any wood you want. However, in the old days the wood was carefully selected and/or treated to suit their intended purpose. The main criteria were, perhaps in order of importance; availability, wood that would not impart a taste to the contents, easy to work with, long life and low weight to strength ratio.

Actually just about any type of wood is ok if you won't be consuming any of the contents from the bucket. So just to keep it simple let us just assume here that you won't be. You can use for example: Pine, fir, oak, alder, beech, elm, ash and, well you get the idea. If you want to drink or eat from it let me know and I will advise you the best choices and/or how to treat easy to get wood to eliminate problems.

PROJECT TIMING FOR EACH STEP
I will set up a fixed amount of time for each step in the tutorial blogs. Many will have time constraints and/or health problems to contend with, so I will try to make a schedule that is roomy for comfort, but short enough to keep things rolling along smoothly. Here is my suggestion for the various steps.

1. Acquire the materials, including for making tools (buy, beg, or steal). - 1 week

2. Make the rounded bottom handplane - 1 week

3. Make the lagging knife and the binding lever - 1 week

4. Cut up the bottom material to final lengths and cut to circumference finish smooth planing and/or sanding. Drill
dowel holes and put together with dowels. Cut up the stave material into long lengths and plane the insides
concave on the inside. Cut the stave's into their final lengths and then cut the dado at the bottom of each
stave. plane, or saw the 'cooper' angles on all the stave's sides. Mark and drill the dowel holes in the stave's.
Prepare the dowels and and use them to assemble the bucket using a steel band to hold the stave's in place
1 week

5. Prepare the band for the handle and bend it so it sits inside the assembled bucket. Scrape off the bark on the
bindings material, split them into two halves, scrape out the dark pith in the center of each half. cut the
hacks in each end of the bindings and make the other necessary cuts. Make extra bindings in case
replacements are needed and leave these in water. Install the bands with the binding lever. This takes
some patience and time, especially without an experienced instructor. Install the handle - 1 week

6. You may want to decorate the finished bucket with a traditional pattern. I will come with some suggestions for
appropriate patterns

Although 5 weeks are set aside this project normally takes about 30 hours or so of actual work.

Each step of the work will be covered by a blog giving material quantities, dimensions, work methods, etc. The above is just to put you in the frame and to get your thoughts on how appropriate the suggested time plan is.
I hate blogs without photos, so I will be posting my own work as we go, plus supplementary drawings where needed covering the how to.

COMMUNICATIONS
I think it would be best if every participant blogs his own intermediate results and frustrations too if he wishes. Questions for me or the other members could either be postd own on their blog, my blog or by PM. The important thing is that we are in touch with each other the whole time to enjoy the experience together and share concerns, successes and failures. The best way to do that is probably for the participants to buddy-up so that we will get email notifications when posts are made to insure we don't miss anything. This could best be done as follows:

1. I'll compile a list of all the known participants and post them. Then it is up to you to buddy up or not.

2. It would help if we use the blog name 'MAKING AN ANCIENT BUCKET- LJ NAME OF BLOGGER'

I hope this rather long and boring blog covers the admin stuff and gives you a rough idea of what's involved. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the proposed time-plan or anything else you want to discuss.

I will do my best to make the future blogs more picturesque and less wordy, although I had thought to have a fixed section to add some historical background. That part can be ignored if you are not interested.

Thanks for reading. Now you can go and take a nap.
 
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#27 ·
Hi Mike,
I'm really impressed by your drawings, I forgot to say this.
I thought it was illustrations from the book you refered to.
You are by far not with out talent when it comes to this also.
Just a side comment.
Best thoughts,
Mads
 
#28 ·
Thank you Mads, but, the bucket was traced and the others were copied from photos. Now you have the true picture, ha ha. My real talent is….....................ok, I'll have to get back to you on that one!

Today I've been busy calculating the material quantities and converting measurements from centimeters to inches. I will be posting this on the next blog in the series together with some more history a little later today.
 
#31 ·
Looking forward to getting started. Sounds like an excellent plan - and if it isn't, well I am sure you will adjust as we go forward - but enough to get started with.

I think if we have general questions related to the particular 'class', then they should be posted to the blog so that they can be shared and be available in one place.
People's individual projects and progress could be posted in a separate blog. Might I suggest that they all be tagged with the same keyword, so that we can search on them later - perhaps tag everything with "lagging"

Napping now…
 
#33 ·
Stefang it dont need to be v-shaped on "croze" (Thanks to Dennis for finding the right word) it can be any shape you want/make it. totally up to you,but before you can use it the bucket needs to be hold together with all the sticks in the right place.
 
#34 ·
Thanks for that info Napoleon. I didn't know that, it sounds useful for coopering, but not for lagging. In lagging you need the bottom to be inserted in the groove in the stave's and with dowels between the stave's to help hold everything in place while the bindings are put on.
 
#35 ·
Mads, a great photo of the gun powder barrel. Wooden hoop like these were the first sort used in coopering. That Russian coopering book you sent me (thank you very much! Copies have been sent to the historic interpreter at Fort Ross, by the way, and added to the resource library at Sutter's Fort) shows the manner of making these hoops.

Notice the number of hoops here. In using wooden hoops, more were used than when hooping the staves with iron.
And wooden hoops were almost always used with powder barrels. Never iron hoops, anyway.

We have two wood hooped barrels at Sutter's Fort. I just finished repairing one that had its heads accidentally bashed in. Reparing the heads was simple. Not so reinstalling them. I took off half the hoops, which turned out to be two many-not enough pinch to get the head back in, so I had to drive down the most central hoop to make it work. Driving down the rest of the hoops created another problem. Tacks had been driven through the hoops to hold them in place, and rust and time had so weakened the wood that two of the hoop broke on the hole.

I used strips of canvass saturated with thinned Titebond III clamped in place for 48 hours. Almost did the trick, but
the hoops wanted to rise at the break. A tack with a wider head brought the cracks back in place.

I had better luck with the other end of the barrel, being forwarned of this weakness. They still had to be driven down, but I was careful to center the wooden hoop driver on the tack holes and finished without more damage.
 
#36 ·
I'd like to recommend a book-another book by Ken Kilby. This one is shorter but is full of ideas and photos, and has things not found in his big book on coopering. This one is a Shire publication titled Coopers and Coopering.
If I could only have one of Kilby's books, it would have to be this one.
 
#130 ·
it realy does make a deasen job ….lol
just kidden you …great job as usual from your side Mike
you hit it spot on with those little rough shaves
compared to what they did in the old days when the work just had to be done
and fast as possiple
and I´m glad to hear and see you made a great plane when the bottomis flat :)

thank´s for sharing it was a pleasure tofollow you thrugh this toturial serie of plane making :)
take care
Dennis
 
#150 ·
Mike!!!
It's perfect, we call your method the American way of a Scandinavian knife…
When this is said, then it's a wonderful way, and when you have a long blade and only need to use the tip, I see no better way at all. So it's the way to go, no complains from here… lol.
I have not hat the energy for wood working the last days, so I did not take the time to look what blades I have in stock here. But if I have a short blade I will be happy to make a tutorial for the Scandinavian way, but ony if some one have the wish, otherwise I will do what ever needed, and make no blog.
You have done a exelent blog again, thank you.
Best of my thoughts,
Mads
 
#210 ·
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Today's blog is about planing the stave's inside concave surface and planing the edge angles. First our logo photos of the bucket we are making and the tools to make it with.

"Photobucket"

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PLANING THE CONCAVE INSIDE OF THE STAVE'S

Yesterday's blog shows me planing the concave side of the stave's. I continued with that until I had enough to do a test assembly. In photo 1 below you see the still flat outside of the stave's I've planed and I have also planed the angled edges which I will tell more about below. I've taped up the stave's to see what a partial assembly will yield. You can see the concave shapes in photo 2 and the half round in photo 3 and sitting upright in photo 4.

You might notice that I managed to cut the stave's different lengths leaving a somewhat wavy top edge (I like diversity). The important thing is that the bottom edge is aligned because the bottom edge is the reference line for the dado which the bottom will sit in. The stave's top edge's will be whipped into order after the dados are cut.

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Photo 5 is just an outside view of the temporary assembly.

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Here you see my planing set-up on my sliding beam bench. This worked better than clamping them between the dogs on my workbench because my material is so thin (3/8").

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PLANING THE EDGE'S OF THE STAVE'S

As I mentioned yesterday I set my bevel finder to the angle indicated which is 15 degrees. Then I marked the angle on each stave on the top and bottom edges. Then I just free handed the planing on my upside down jack plane while it was clamped in my bench. This worked very well and very easy and the angles were very accurate. But without an angled fence you do need the marks to follow as you plane. All-in-all pleasant work and quickly done. I hope you will give it a try. In the photo below you can see that my jack plane has grown a beard.

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WHAT WENT WRONG?

I enjoyed myself so much today that I began to think that everything was going almost too well. Well, I was right! Here is a list of what went wrong.

1. I continued to assemble the stave's with tape around the bottom circle as I went. When I was just short one stave, it became apparent to me that I had misjudged the width of the stave's need to complete the circle as laid out on the bottom piece. I won't waste your time with excuses and yes I do know coopers math, but somehow I bungled it anyway. It wasn't easy! Ok, this is not a big deal. It only means that the bucket diameter will be a little less. The main problem will be adjusting the bottom to the new size and of course my hurt pride. Luckily I haven't cut the bottom round yet, so I just need to find out the new diameter and mark it on the bottom. Photo 1 below shows that temporarily assemble bucket and photo 2 is an inside view.

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2. Coping with the 'Weeping Stave' This is the last stave that goes into the bucket, and it is aptly named as it almost had me in tears. Hear that girls? Proof that I am a modern sensitive man. The width of the last stave compensates for small errors in widths which are mainly caused by planing the angled edges too much, and errors in judgement like I made, plus the old timers didn't have the math (and they still did it better than me!). The photo below shows the bad joint.

"Photobucket"

The challenge here is to get the right width for that last oddball stave and also the right thickness. I managed to tape the bucket together minus the last stave and somehow estimated the width needed to fit the opening. I almost got that right, but the material was way to thin over the great round distance and therefore the outside of the stave didn't match up with the other stave's. So tomorrow I have to make a new 'Weeping Stave'. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading and please make your own mistakes and not copy mine, lol. Thanks for reading this.
 
#218 ·
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I don't know about you, but I hate blogs without pictures, but I have to do this one quickly so others won't make a similar mistake to myself.

EXPLANATION
My personal goal with this project is to do it as much as possible like the old days. That means not using cooper math to calculate the width of the stave's. The book I am following just gives a radii for the bucket bottom, and a width to use for the stave's. It does not explain how that stave width was derived. I somehow got sucked into not using the cooper calculation, but without any other way to determine the width of the stave's.

I am very unhappy about not maintaining the planned diameter drawn on the bucket bottom. That would ruin the whole project for me and perhaps others. Last night I tried to think of how ancient man would be able to physically calculate the stave width needed. I have come up with a very simple solution that could very well have been used by early bucket makers.

The other unsatisfying aspect has been determining the edge angle for the stave's. Of course we know that 12 stave's requires two 15 degree edges on each stave, but early man again could not calculate the required angles. Once again, the explanation in the book is VERY fuzzy. However I also have come up with a plausible solution to how that might have been done.

AM I A GENIUS?
Hardly. Coming up with the solutions required no above average intelligence or creative abilities. It's just that we don't need these solutions today, so we never think about them.

OK, SO WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS?
I'm not being coy, but I'm going to tell you in this evening's blog (this evening in Norway). I want to show you with photos how to do it. Meanwhile, if you are tired of beating around the bush, here is the cooper math to calculate the width of your stave's.

1. Stave width
(Outside bucket diameter X pi) divided by the no. of stave's = Stave width

pi = 3,14159265

2. Edge angle of stave's
( 360 degrees divided by the no. of stave's) divided by 2 = edge angle for each side of stave.

I would urge you to use my old method and just use the calculation to check it' accuracy. My reason is, that with the 'old method' you will not be exact enough for you stave's to all be exactly the same width. That means you will be faced with the ancient problem of the much feared 'Weeping Stave' to enrich your journey back in time.

MY PERSONAL PLAN OF ACTION
I went out and bought some new pine today. I am going to do this thing over again the right way. This time I bought 3/8" thick materials which were closest to the 3/4" that I specified to everyone earlier. This thickness should work well and give me more comfort than the 3/8" which I so stupidly resawed to the first time. That said, many of the ancient buckets were made as thin as 1/4" thick. I'm not ready for that challenge yet!

PARTICIPANTS BONUS
Those of you who complete this project will receive a wonderful bonus. It is not cash or material, so don't go out and buy that new car yet or add a new wing to your house. You will be pleased with it though. I am saving this for a pleasant surprise. It will come in the form of information. We are after all children of the information age, so this seems an appropriate bonus to me.

Thanks for reading this non illustrated version of the bucket blog.
 
#219 ·
never use much math myself

geometry tells me
that a point with 6 equally intersecting lines
as a star pattern

(will have the 30deg. angle between them
hence 1/2 of that is the 15 deg. angle of the stave)

this is just for maths sake

the angle can be picked of the drawing
regardless of the number of sides

drawing a circle from the center point anywhere
will give the stave width at that point
the angle never changing
regardless if it is 3" or 5' or 10miles

i do agree that making the staves first
is the way to go
then the diameter of the bottom
can be picked from that

this is just me
i don't remember that far back in my youth
but i may have been there then

only my lobotomist will know for sure

thank you mike
well done !
 
#228 ·
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This blog will be about showing you a plausible way that ancient man might have calculated the width of the stave's needed to make a bucket with the diameter he had in mind. First our logo photo of the bucket we are making and then a Swedish bucket made like ours from 1050 AD. I think this was the very first product sold by Ikea. And lastly a logo photo of the shop-made tools to make our bucket with.

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CALCULATING THE WIDTH OF THE STAVE'S

Step 1. The bottom as a starting point
First we draw a circle representing the inside diameter of the bucket. Then we draw an outer circle. The difference between the two circles represents the the thickness of the materials we intent to use. I have used 15mm thickness in the photo below (I am just showing this metric to show the method). In this photo you see several things of interest. They are:

1. The inner and outer circles drawn on the bottom piece

2. A straight line intersecting the circle creating to equal halves.

3. A thin stick which has been bent around the outer circle and marked at each end with a black line denoting the beginning and ending of exactly 1/2 of the circle's circumference.

The clamping was done so I could photograph the set-up. In reality this could be handheld with a little assistance and then marked. The stick could also be a thin pliable twig and the markings could be with a knife in the bark (the ancient way?).

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Step 2. String theory
Now we have a stick that has the length of 1/2 the circumference of the circle as a starting point. Now we need a way to divide that stick into 6 equal lengths, or 1/2 the number of stave's we wish to use. !/6 of that length will of course be equal to the width of one stave.

But, it seems to complicated to try to equally divide that stick since we ancients have no rulers and we don't know how to divide.

The easy way is replace the stick with a piece of string that is flexible and can be folded. So in photo 1 you see that we place a piece of string on our stick and mark the string to be cut at the same length.

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Now we can fold the string in two and cut it in half. That half will now represent 1/4 of our circles circumference as shown in photo 2 below.

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Next we take one of the halves of the string and fold that into 3 as shown in photo 3 below. and cut the 3 lengths as shown in photo 4. We don't really have to do the cutting, but it looked a little messy just folded. If you haven't fallen asleep by now you will probably notice that the 3 string pieces aren't exactly the same length. Sloppy folding! Anyway I picked out the longest one to use as my stave width. It was 7cm. So at last I had my Stave width! (fanfare).

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Determining the edge angle
As I've said more times than you want to hear, with 12 stave's the edge angles will have to be 15 degrees for us to get the stave's tight against each other and in a circle. Here's how our ancient bucket maker might have done it.

Step 1. prepare a mock stave
My mock stave is shown in photo 1 below. It is the same thickness as my real staves will be. I have cut it to a width equal to that remaining piece of string. Modern man would call it 6.6cm in width. Only the height is not the same as a real stave. Who cares? The mock stave has been positioned with the right back corner just touching the radius line where it intersects the outer circle. The left corner is just is also sitting on the outer circle. We mark that point on the left onto the outer circle where it intersects with the left corner.

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Now we draw a new line from the center of the circle and straight through the dot we just marked as shown in photo 2 below. That radius line is shown in photo 3.

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Next we reposition our mock stave back in the same position and we easily draw our angle line on each side.

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PROVING THE ACCURACY OF THE METHODS
I hope that if you weren't impressed that you were at least a little amused at my convoluted way of doing this. But now we want to prove if these methods are viable.

The stave width
I didn't think I would get 100% accuracy with my method, but I wanted to get close. The result will be used only for the first 11 stave's. The last stave aka the 'weeping stave' will be a different size, smaller in this case, which is always better that wider in my opinion.

I checked the results of my method with coopering math and based on the outer ring diameter, which told me that the circumference was 82.3cm resulting in a uniform stave width of 6.86m.

That compared to a circumference of 84cm using the width based on the length of the little piece of string. which indicated a width of 7cm.

However I won't know about the discrepancy until I get to the last stave and see that the opening is 1.7cm too narrow to fit a stave with a 7cm width. So the last stave will have to cut down to 5.3cm to fit.

The angle
Lastly I checked the derived bevel with my bevel thingy and it was indeed 15 degrees. So another huge success. (applause).

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Well that's it for now. Tomorrow I will be starting over on a new bucket. I'm not sure how far I will get. I hope this blog will make things easier for the purist who want to do as much of the work as practical in the old way.

Here again is the link for the enlightened ones to learn cove cutting on the tablesaw. A really great link it is too. http://woodgears.ca/cove/index.html

Thanks for reading and I hope you find it helpful.
 
#261 ·
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I haven't been in the shop since Thursday and even then only for a short time. You might know that I wasn't happy with my first bucket attempt because the diameter I planned wasn't happening. I will still finish that first bucket, but I started a new one hoping to come in on target this time.

On Thursday I only had time to make up a bottom for the new ancient bucket, then I started fooling around trying out a new way to get the correct angles on the edges, but this time with a method that would cater to different widths in the stave's. So at the risk of boring everyone or creating some controversy I will show you what I came up with. First our logo pics of the bucket we are making and the shop made tools we will use to make it with.

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A METHOD TO DETERMINE STAVE EDGE ANGLES USING ONLY STRING
Judging from the feedback of my last blog where I attempted to show primitive methods for determining stave widths and edge angles, it was a consensus that my suggested methods which I implied could have been used where probably not valid.

Everyone did seem to agree though that the ancients had string, so I've come up with a new theory for how they might have used it to determine edge angles. I thought this method might amuse you if not impress you, but of course I am naively hoping for both.

Step 1. Revised string theory
As you can see in the photo below I have tacked a piece of string to the center point of my bottom circle. I'm using the old bottom. (the ancients had nylon string didn't they?). Just ignore the radius markings you see. as we won't be using those. they were part of the old theory.

As you can see, I've already place the first stave mock-up in place.

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Step 2. calculating the angle for the next stave
I'm using different stave widths for this experiment, and I'm placing the next one again using the string to give me the angle needed.

To do this I had to first put the string at the angle of the first stave, then keep the string in position while moving the first stave away and placing the new stave on top of the string and otherwise lined up with circle as shown in the photo below.

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Step 3. Marking the angle to match the prior stave
As shown photo 1 below, I have marked off the angle on the next stave and cut it as in photo 2. It worked.

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Step 4. Marking the angle on the other side of the 2nd stave
Again I used the string to mark the other edge and cut then cut it as shown in photos 1and 2 below. I then continued in this way until I had enough to prove the accuracy of my method, as shown in photo 3 below.

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MAKING THE NEW BOTTOM
I did this a little differently. I just wanted to show you in the photo below that after planing the bottom boards and jointing them, I taped them together on the back side, which helped to hold them in place while I marked for the dowels. My marks were a little off on the old bottom and I didn't get my dowels perfectly centered either. The new bottom turned out a lot better with the tape and I took pains to make sure my dowel holes were centered and drilled straight. But I did it all freehand (using my ancient Dewalt cordless drill which is one whole month old).

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So that is it for today. Your comments on this method are invited (as long as you don't swear). I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. I'm back to the shop to work on my bucket tomorrow so I can catch up with Mads. Although I see that Mads is actually making a basket, not a bucket. Buckets always have handles that swing. No matter, it will be made with the authentic lag method, so I'm just having a little fun at Mads expense here. I guess I'm a little jealous of his stylish handle and the long stave's it's attached to.

Thanks for reading.
 
#262 ·
Hi Mike.
I'm sure you are wrong!!!
Ok I try again;
I'm impressed, this is a method I can believe in, and most of all can imagine could have been used.
Less is really more!
I will round the end of my handle and make round holes in the long stafs, in this way it can swing! You can't hold me down, I'm like a wine cork in a bucket… lol.
Well done Mike, I enjoy to see your effort.
Best thoughts and a big smile,
Mads
 
#271 ·
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Just a short blog today to tell you what I've learned and to give you a few tips. Today I planed 6 stave's concave and also cut out the dados in them for the bottom. As I mentioned in a past blog, it is easy to cut the lines marked out for the dado.

I first scored with a knife. It's a good idea to just lightly score the lines much like the pressure you might use on a pencil, then cut deeper the 2nd time. This will keep you from wandering off the line on the first cut.

After that it's using the lag knife. It is amazingly easy to use and you can get a lot of pressure on it with the long handle. You just have to be a little careful at the sharp outside edges of the staves so you don't break them out.

The photo below shows me starting to chisel out the waste. Here again you need to be a little careful with the edges. I started the cut with the bevel up and then reversed it to bevel down about a third of the way into the cut. This makes it easier to follow the curve of the stave evenly. If you should take a chip from the edge, it will likely be near the inside edge which will be planed away when you plane the edge angles. I am doing the edge angles last for that reason.

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Here is the first one finished.

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And here it is with the bottom inserted.

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And with a few staves set up. Please note that I have put the long handle stave's at one end of the middle board and the other will be at the other end directly opposite. this will be the strongest way to mount the handle stave's to reduce stress on the bucket bottom and structure when it's filled with liquid.

"Photobucket"

One last point. I originally ground my plane iron to the same radius as the stave's would be. In retrospect that was a mistake, although it worked ok, I still felt it wasn't optimal so I reground my blade to a tighter radius and that made a significant difference. Better control, Faster and better. I'm sorry I miss-led you on this point and I hope it won't create too much work for you if you choose to regrind and hone your plane iron.

I hope everyone participating in this project is having fun and learning something new, as I am. Thanks for reading.
 
#272 ·
Hi Mike,
looking good!
I look forward to try to use that lag knife.
Cant stop to admire your mallet!
I think also the blade will be a easier use if it's sharpened a little more like a scrub plane, I found mine swimming a little on the wood when I planed, but I took the blade out a little extra.
Thank you for sharing the day,
best thoughts,
Mads
 
#281 ·
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Another short update.
I finally got my bucket stave's mounted on the bottom. I still have to round the stave's on the outside and drill the dowel holes. The joints are mostly tight between the stave's, but a couple of very small adjustments will finish the job. The black you see between the gaps in the photo below are just pencil marks. I did the edge angles by starting out with an angle that seemed about right and then I adjusted them afterwards, also by eye. All the planing was done freehand on my hand plane mounted in the bench as I showed earlier. This time I got the planned diameter.

"Photobucket"

My work sequence
I found a great work sequence that saved a little time.

1. First the concave side of each stave was planed.

2.The planed stave was left between the bench dogs after planing, the bottom dado was measured, marked and cut before planing the next stave and so on until all the stave's were finished (except the rounding on the outside).

3. I marked the same edge angle on all the stave's (except the last one).

4. The staves were taped together on the outside to hold them together while I placed them on the bottom.

5. I tightened the stave's with a cord clamp to see how accurate the angles were. About half seemed alright. The others were marked for adjustments using my eye and a ruler to draw the line with. I dismounted the stave's and replaned the ones needing adjustment. I had to do this 3 times, but it didn't take long. Now they are almost perfect except a couple that need a small adjustment.

Sorry I didn't take more pictures, but I was working like mad to get to the point where I left off. Tomorrow I plan to finish up the outside of the staves, make those two small adjustment and drill the dowel holes. Still a bit of work to go before making the handle and the bindings.

Thanks for reading.
 
#282 ·
mike this is a great work you are doing
problems and all
your humility is inspirational

however the old timers did this
you have shown one trait
that stands out

perseverence

my hat is off to you
(sorry my toupee got stuck to it) lol
 
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