At a recent gun and reenactor show I acquired a small keg with copper bands and wooden bungs. I would like to use the keg (about 1 and 1/2 gallon) as equipment in my 18th century French encampment. The problem: The bands are loose and the keg obviously needs swelling. The staves are not loose. I'd like to hear from amateur barrel experts and coopers about the right way to hydrate this item and swell it so that it will hold water. I don't know the original purpose of the keg...perhaps it was used in a liquor store to advertise booze of some kind. I am also wondering if I could use it to hold drinking water, but I don't know about the sanitation, safety, etc. I am wondering if there is some kind of really cheap liquor I could disinfect it with. I am also thinking I might have to swell it in stages. Anybody have any experience with barrels and kegs?
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keg swelling
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user 48679
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This link is about swelling barrel staves - like a keg, just bigger. (google is your friend)
https://www.thebarrelmill.com/blog/...text=Fill 1/3 of the,an additional 1-2 hours.
https://www.thebarrelmill.com/blog/...text=Fill 1/3 of the,an additional 1-2 hours.
Thanks, Pietro. I read this link again. I already read it, and I think the info is good. I was also hoping to get some members' personal expierience and input.
appalichian hunter
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fill it full of water and then sink it in bigger container of water might need to put a big rock on the barrel head to keep it submerged let it sit for perhaps a month and there should be no leaks also once this is done you need to keep it full of water or it will dry out. Neat story my late father-in-law build plank bottom river boats for fishing. I was home on leave with the wife and he ask me to help him take a new finished boat to the river, away we went as I looked at the boats bottom I noticed there were gaps between the boards and told him that it was going to sink, he said no way, so we launched the boat and it sank, He chained it fast and looked at me and said you know that boat did sink, damn get in the truck and lets go, Came home again about a month later so he tells me we best go get that sunken boat out of the river and away we go, I waded in attached a chain to it and he pulled it out of the river with the truck, stood there a bit (actually we drank an old German beer or two) then he said best bail out the water and see why it leaked, we got it bailed out and he pushed it back into the water and she floated like a feather on the breeze. Spent a lot of time in that boat with him catching catfish and of course drinking Old German beer.
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reminds me of a saying i have heard. "hang out with old guys, cause they know stuff.
if they haven't forgotten it all!
if they haven't forgotten it all!
Yeah, I bought one like that too, 5 gal.
Reality is that they have a limited life span w/an end-date, bargain wood kegs are just that.
As already shown, basic care is easily found.
Mine now has one end removed, the bottom re-enforced with a ply-wood insert and holds my tent stakes.
It still looks good in camp,, holding the spare stakes,,
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Kegs were used even in the 1950s to ship hardware. I remember seeing them with nails etc. I suspect those weren’t water tight.
Okay....so I filled my ~ 1 gallon cask partially with water and then put it in a container of water so that the outside would swell, too. It swelled and the bands are now tight. I also learned to back off the bungs and put them in kind of loosely before swelling, because they are REALLY hard to pull out if they are tapped in tightly and then swelled. I guess this is part of Barrels and Kegs 101. We learn so much by mistakes and experience! I examined the interior of my keg and it is wax-coated, with the wax possibly somewhat cracked and deteriorated with age. I would like to find the cheapest kind of rum or alcohol to partially fill the keg with so that I can keep it wet inside without the water spoiling. I may or may not want to use it for drinking water. I will not be drinking the rum.
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I had at one time the exact same item described. As to drinking, ICK! ECCH! I never tried to hydrate it, it was actually quite old and I kind of wish I still had it; but in a lifetime of accumulating, you can't have everything! Good luck!
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I have a local military-collector & re-enactor swap meet twice a year near me. Nice place to pick up that 'retired re-enactor' cartridge box or what-have-you!
Mousegunguy
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Don’t swell it until you drive the hoops down towards the center of the cask.
A well made cask should be tight without swelling.
A well made cask should be tight without swelling.
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While it's true about a well made flask, one that is 150 years old like the one I had is going to have wood shrinkage. Like the old original muskets where shrinkage is apparent at the toe of the butt plate.
Mousegunguy
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A cask made correctly is bone dry to start. As it gets used the staves swell equally. If it drys out the staves will shrink equally but the angle on the edge of the stave won’t change so all you should have to do is drive the hoops tight.
The wood shouldn’t shrink over time.
I’ve made casks, kegs, barrels, well & water buckets totally by hand, from scratch.
From harvesting & processing the trees into stave stock, to using the floor plane to cut the watertight joints by eye, no gig.
I worked in a cooper shop for about 15 years making wooden containers 1830 style
I had a five gallon one I used at ronny. Before going I would fill with water and place in bathtub for couple days. Once or twice in it's lifetime I would tap the bands to tighten them. That keg lasted me about 40 years until I gave it to my son to use.
kansas_volunteer
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Yes, the hoops should have been driven down first. A tool for it can be made from a piece square or rectangular steel stock. File a notch about hoop thickness on one flat side, like a step, and use it like a punch to drive the hoops down. The old cooper's had a nice tool to do this. I've tightened several water kegs by first driving the hoops down then soaking them.
I have a wonderful book on coopering in Ukrainian. I can't read a word of it but the many illustrations are self-explanatory. I recall the old Whole Earth Catalog had some place to buy coopering tools.
I have several old barrels and used them at vous. They were like what you described when I would dig them out of storage so I would get the bands where they would be even around the barrel if I could and I would fill the barrel with water and set it inside a washtub and fill it up to cover the barrel as best I could. I would turn it every few days and after about 3 days it would swell up. I could take it out of the washtub and let it set where I could fill it full. I would let it set untill there was no more seepage then I would drain the water out and put some fresh water with a little bleach in it to sanitize, after a while I would drain and rinse out several times until it was not leaking any and the water looked clean. This whole process took less than a week, it depended also on the weather. Good Luck
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