Wooden Water Buckets

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afivecents

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I have been given the task of making a wooden water bucket, in honor of my deceased dad. I have learned some of the methods from Google, and now I would like to hear from anyone who may have some tips and pointers here. I would prefer to go with straight sides, as it seems it would be easier to make. Thank you for reading.
 
I have been given the task of making a wooden water bucket, in honor of my deceased dad. I have learned some of the methods from Google, and now I would like to hear from anyone who may have some tips and pointers here. I would prefer to go with straight sides, as it seems it would be easier to make. Thank you for reading.
I have similar interest & little knowledgs w/no practice.White oak is used in wooden barrels because of closed cell structure prevents leaks thru the staves themselves, joints 'tween staves another matter.All I got on subject.next!
 
Thank you for the suggestions. I will be looking into all of them. I know that building one of these is no small matter, but I have reason enough to make one that will work just fine!
I finally used " Wooden bucket plans" in google search, thanks for starting this thread. I'd prolly not got around to the search without it.
 
Greetings everyone! I got to digging around the internet and I found what I was looking for. Math! What needs to be done is decide on how many staves you are going to use. Next, find the circumference of the bucket. Diameter times 3.1416. Then you divide the circumference by the number of staves. This will give you the width each stave needs to be.
Say you are making a bucket shaped like cylinder that is 14" diameter. I will use 20 staves.
14 x 3.1416=43.98.
43.98 divided by 20 staves = 2.199
Each stave needs to be 2.199" wide.
Now for the angle each side of each stave must be. A circle has 360 degrees and there are 20 staves.
360 divided by 20 = 18.
Because there will be two staves butted to each other, 18 needs to be divided by half, or 9 degrees.
So the 14" diameter bucket will use 20 staves, 2.199" wide, with a 9 degree angle on each side.
Barrel shapes would require more math.
The top and bottom are the same, but the middle is bigger. Each circumference needs to be found. Apply the above formulas to these numbers.
I am going to attempt the first one with pine. Then oak.
Thank you for helping. Now the work begins!
 
So you are making a perfect cylinder rather than a tapered? That is certainly where I'd start! What are you going to use to hold it together?
 
I will just use two steel rings. A little blacksmithing will whip it into shape. I would like to peen the rivets and not weld. I am going to have to cheat and drill the holes as I do not have a forge... yet! I get to use the anvil my dad made and I inherited. Just because he's dead does not mean he can't help!
 

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