Reinforcing the Barrel

Before making any cuts, the staves must be screwed to the hoops, otherwise the barrel will fall apart.

The barrel's wood was moist with staves fitting tightly, making it difficult to distinguish between staves. Instead of attempting to place a screw in the center of each stave, I equally spaced screws around each hoop at an interval that would assure each stave received at least one screw. After scribing a line along the center of each hoop, I used a spring loaded center punch to mark the desired location of each screw. Self-drilling hex head screws (#10 x 1 inch) and an electric drill helped the work go quickly -- I used 320 screws to complete the reinforcement.