Ideas That Changed The Rum World: Oak Barrel Production
Category: Mechanization of Oak Barrel Production
Cooperage, the official name of the trade responsible for the production and repair of wooden barrels, is a profession that remained almost unchanged from its origin through the 19th century. Up until then, it relied extensively on highly-skilled laborers who arduously employed specialized tools to create barrels, slowly and-thus-expensively. Cooperage machinery was born in the USA in the late 1840’s, despite the fact that the country as a whole was relatively new to the trade, compared to European countries who had been at it for centuries.
The success of the “American System” (as referred to by the British) was such that, in 1854, the British government sent a commission to the USA to investigate this system of manufacturing “interchangeable parts made by machinery requiring little or no hand fitting”.
In their 1855 report, the commission noted that “Machinery is invariably employed for barrel making in the United States” and that they “produce the article very quickly, and of a quality sufficiently good for the use to which it is applied.”
Idea: Stave Cutter
The stave cutting machine, shown below, was patented on March 24, 1868, by W.R. and O.D. Bishop. This machine featured a curved saw with an arc matching the curvature sought in the final stave.
Having a machine produce the staves with the desired arc, consistently and tirelessly, resulted in a large productivity increase for coopers, which translated into better and less-expensive barrels.
