Coopering - The Traditional Art of Making Buckets and Barrels

Steve Habersetzer is the everyman woodworker. One of Steve's first jobs was making traditional coopered buckets. Coopering is making  barrels, buckets, washtubs from tapered and beveled straight bits of wood (staves).  No  glue or fastenings are used!          

In this course we'll take you through the whole process of   making a bucket using staves, iron bands and solid base.            

You'll get to practice making staves using a traditional cooper's plane and measuring gauges. We'll compare using split wood and sawn wood for the staves.            

We'll show you how to assemble the staves inside the metal bands and how to size and fit the bottom of the bucket.            

The course is not long enough for everybody to make a bucket but we should be able to make a couple of buckets.

Saturday May 31st 9:00am - 4:00pm. Port Townsend School of Woodworking in Building 315, Fort Worden.

Class fee is $60   Register on-line at  www.ptwoodschool.com