Parts of a barrel
The Barrel Head / Bottom
Head and Bottom of a barrel are made of 8-10 single oak parts each. Between each piece a straw gets assembled and then connected with pins (can be nails or wood). Pressed together and turned to size, they are pressed between the staves during assembly.
The Rings / Hoops
Usually six or eight rings hold a barrel together. These are connected with rivets and are hammered onto the barrel. Additionally, they are secured with hook nails (Clevis) after the final assembly so that they hold their position.
The Staves
A stave is a narrow length of wood with a slightly beveled edge to form the sides of barrels, tanks, tubs, vats and pipelines, originally handmade by coopers. One barrel needs usually 27 to 29 staves to fit together. They have a mid-wide from 40mm up to 110mm. The thickness for wine barrels is usually 22 to 25mm. Beer Barrel staves have a thickness up to 50mm, because there is more pressure in the barrel.
Bung Hole with bung
The Bung hole gets drilled when the barrel is completed. Usually the hole gets placed where the rivets of the hooks are.
Wine Barrels
How we use the barrels
Where we buy barrels:
All our barrels have been used in New Zealand. So far we know, there is no barrel production in New Zealand. They are usually made in Europe or the United States from old oak trees. French ones are known as "the best ones".
Disassembling & catalog the wine barrels
We disassemble most of the barrels and register the individual parts in order to know how many parts we have available for which of our products.
Cleaning
This is a important stage of the work. As better we clean, less work we have to do later with sanding. So we spend a lot of time to clean dirt and wine residue of the oak.
Storage of the barrel products:
We also regard the storage of the individual products as an important step in the production of new products from this "living" material; wood. The moisture in the wood must get out of the parts. Because only dry wood will not deform afterwards, which we do not want.
Processing:
With the cleaned & dried parts we start to work. Imaging to cut with a saw and still smelling the wine which was in the barrel... hmm. That's fun at work :-)
