Coopering is the trade of producing a vessel from wood staves, without the use of joinery or adhesives. The tools and methods employed are remarkably unchanged between the earliest vessels and bespoke items still being produced; a sharp edge, a guide, and hoops may have changed in design and longevity, but the act of creating a stave retains several basic process tasks. Similarly, the staved wooden vessels vary in size and use from a tankard to a water tower, yet the principles of construction remain the same. This paper lays out the medieval process for constructing a bucket, drawing from medieval examples and informed post-medieval traditional methods.

Coopering is subdivided into “dry” and “wet” coopering, based on whether the vessel is intended to hold solids or liquids, as well as “white” coopering, which describes straight-staved objects such as buckets, and wash basins. Straight-staved vessels can fall into either “dry” or “wet” category, depending on the intended use, material quality, and craftsmanship.

A bucket is a generally round, open-topped vessel with a handle, used for transporting either liquid or dry contents. The name has origins tracing to Middle English buket and Old English bucc.

Ceremonial buckets, or banduddu, appear in representation as early as the Sumerians (right), though later extant examples (left) are woven or solid metal, rather than wooden or stave-constructed.

Wood stave vessels appear in imagery as early as an Egyptian depiction of a stave-and-hoop tub and Pliny the Elder describes wood stave buckets bound with hoops, produced by the Gauls for storing liquids.

Process Introduction

This paper employs a combination of archeological evidence, pictorial evidence, and post-period traditional technique to demonstrate a reasonable interpretation of straight-staved wood vessel construction.

Although staved wooden objects appear quite commonly in illumination and even occasionally as extant objects, the process for producing a vessel is not often described – unless the only work is snugging down the last hoop with a driver and mallet.

The author’s coopering experience stems from an initial class on traditional methods with Steve Habersetzer, at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking in 2021. The applied lessons from that class are quite applicable to premodern wood-stave construction, owing to the fundamental similarity of the output object between the Iron Age and the late Industrial Revolution. At its core, building a vessel from a set of staves relies on accuracy and consistency, using remarkably simple tools: a plane and dividers. Highly specialized tools, like the croze, simply contribute to the efficiency of the process.

Object Research

Archeology and Extant Objects

Stave-constructed vessels are somewhat plentiful throughout the medieval period, in either complete or fragmentary finds, especially as items in grave finds throughout the early medieval period.

Anglo-Saxon grave find examples commonly demonstrate highly decorated metal hoops and handles as seen in this 6th century example in the British Museum.

The hoops in this example are leaded copper that has been stamped and the wood has been identified as yew.

A 16th century example from excavation at the Star Inn in Coppergate, provides a complete stave-constructed bucket, bound by iron hoops. It happened to be found in a barrel-lined well, reiterating the varied uses of stave-constructed vessels and their repurposing beyond initial intended use.

Oak bucket (8742) with iron fittings in situ in fifteenth-century barrel-lined well (8766) at 16–22 Coppergate, York ©YAT

Illumination

Stave construction appears in pictorial examples of both object usage and assembly. Commonly, the representation of the coopering trade, encompassing all staved vessel production, is depicted in the novel act of snugging a hoop to an object. The mallet and wedge-shaped hoop setting tool, along with the direction of set and hoop flare, are certainly the most frequently represented process step, a logical product of the clear disambiguation of the trade and ease of distinct representation. This process depiction appears across a spectrum of media.

A testament to the status and affluence of purveyors of the trade, coopers set hoops on barrels in two different donor panes of the 13th century stained glass windows at Chartres Cathedral, in the Noah Window and the Julian the Hospitaller Window. (Right – A wheelwright and a cooper, Julian the Hospitaller Window, Chartres Cathedral, c1200)

Hoop-setting, as applied to white coopering, appears in several of the Nuremburg Hausbuchs of the 15th and 16th century.

In one example from the early fifteenth century Mendel I Nuremberg Hausbuch, a cooper by the name of Albrecht Pütner, sets the hoops on a bucket.

The depiction shows this work completed astride a low bench (as compared to the taller benches of the Joiners depicted in other illuminations), with handle staves extending below the surface of the bench. Working on a bench that is narrower than the upper opening of the vessel, allows the cooper to perform many process steps with all but 2 staves supported by the bench. If the base end of the vessel is also narrower than the bench, the open end of the vessel can be worked while fully supported. This arguably implies some standardization to vessel size and potentially standardization of bench sizes once vessel size specifications become more established by the 17th century.

This illumination holds somewhat rare significance, in that it only depicts straight-staved vessels, namely, a basin, a bucket, a milking bucket, and a drinking vessel. The lack of a barrel implies enough economic demand to allow for specialization between straight- and curved- stave trades.

Another hausbuch depiction from 1485 again shows a cooper setting hoops, but in a more complete workshop.

The individual is also working on a low bench, though his bench also serves double duty as a shaving horse. The shaving horse is used to quickly clamp a piece of wood, in this case a stave blank, via foot pressure while working the piece with a draw knife.

Around the workshop, we see a roughing axe in a stump, several loose hoops, and even household items, including a metal pitcher or mug – almost certainly for a well-earned drink at the end of the day.

Jost Amman’s 16th century woodcuts introduce two more process depictions: shaping staves by means of a Cooper’s Plane and wood hoop-making.

The Cooper’s Plane is functionally a very long Jointer plane, meaning a wide plane iron mounted in an elongated body. It is used by passing the working piece over the plane, rather than in the typical fashion of moving the plan over the working piece. The length and stability of the Cooper’s Plane allows one to set and replicate very consistent geometry for both the angle and taper of a stave.

The woodcut also depicts a worker binding withies for hoops. Bent-staved construction requires notably stronger hoops during assembly, due to the forces imparted while bending a stave to shape.

Materials

Staves and Base

Extant finds, related archaeological evidence, and dendrological studies establish pine, fir, oak, maple, and larch as typical woods employed in stave production throughout the period and both insular and continental Europe. Given the intent of this paper as a study in process, rather than an investigation or classification of extant examples, the author leaves discussion of species properties and availability to other works. The cut orientation and quality of stave blank selection is of more central concern to this paper and is discussed in the Wood Selection section, below.

Hoops

Hoops were created from green wood, various metals, and even rope, depending on the intended use. Extant wooden hoops are uncommon, but wrapped bindings are frequently evident in depictions of coopers and barrels, quite explicitly in the Amman woodcut. Anglo-Saxon and other early period grave finds rather commonly include staved vessels with decorated bands of copper, bronze, or iron. There are examples of undecorated iron hoops found in Britain at least as early as the 12th century, though the cost and additional craftsmanship required to produce iron goods likely makes iron hoops more of a luxury item through the early modern period.

Handle

Assembled vessels with holes for handles, but no apparent metal handle imply a rope handle, though extant rope handles are lacking in archaeological finds. Iron handles and handle-connection points or reinforcement appear across the high medieval period in Britain. Interestingly, iron handles have been identified with buckets bound with both iron and wood hoops.

Modern Equivalents

In addition to local harvesting, several usable wood species options for staves are commonly available across the United States, either milled quartersawn or able to be processed from larger pieces with some careful selection. Options include White Oak, Douglas Fir, soft Maples, and pine. If one has access to green lumber, riving nearly any straight-grained species is an excellent option, depending on the intended usage for the vessel. Similarly, green willow withies or resawn domestic hardwoods are usable for wooden hoops.

For metal hoops and handles, mild steel is much easier to source than wrought iron, for both sizing and permanent hoops. Commercially available copper and brass sheet can be cut and shaped for finer decorative hoops.

Compromises

Bucket A
Commercial quartersawn Douglas Fir, mild steel riveted hoops, rope handle

Bucket B
Repurposed miscellaneous pine from the wood pile, reclaimed willow hoops from a different bucket, mild steel handle and mounts

Bucket C
Commercial quartersawn White Oak, mild steel riveted + forge welded hoops, mild steel handle and supports

Tools

Woodworking