Chamfers, Knives, and Shaves

The art of barrel making, known as cooperage, is an ancient skill. Exactly who made the first barrel is not known but the history of cooperage is interwoven with the history of wine. In the thirteenth century B.C. peoples from the Balkans and regions north of the Danube arrived in the area known today as Burgundy. (from www.vinest.net)

Coopering was an important craft necessary to society and, because of that, every town had at least one cooper. A barrel, a type of cask, is only one aspect of a cooper’s work. Coopers also made buckets and other household items combining wood and metal. A wood barrel may look simple in its design, but it consists of multiple components that must fit together precisely to provide a tight seal. According to John Seymour, author of “The Forgotten Arts & Crafts” (Dorling Kindersley Publishing Inc.), “the secret of a barrel’s tightness is its shape. If one stave is out of shape by the slightest degree the barrel will leak.”

Barrel making was and is a highly skilled trade. Coopering proficiency is acquired through years of backbreaking labor. A January, 1875 article that appeared in “The Manufacturer and Builder”, a leading trade magazine from the nineteenth century, bragged that “the consumption of barrels in the United States exceeds that of any other country in the world”. Apprenticeships were highly coveted and lasted more than four years. In fact, coopers formed some of the earliest and most formidable labor unions in the world to protect their livelihood.

Coopers assembled casks in a variety of sizes that ranged from four gallons to more than 100 gallons. The most common product they made was a barrel, which is a cask that holds 36 gallons. Other popular sizes included a puncheon (72 gallons), a hogshead (54 gallons), and a kilderkin (18 gallons). Early barrels were assembled from white oak slats called “staves” and hickory hoops; although the hickory was eventually replaced by iron hoops.

Between 1844 and 1883 there were over four hundred different barrel making inventions that were patented in the United States. Most of these were hand tools. Then came the discovery of oil, which created an extraordinary demand for barrels. Efficient production kept the cost of a barrel to only 32 cents in 1880. New manufacturing processes were adopted and by the late 1880s most large cooperages were using semi-automated equipment. The machines could perform almost all parts of coopers’ work. And yet, as late as the 1890s, there were still over 50,000 coopers in the United States.

Coopers were early users of flexible assembly equipment. “A considerable number of machines were necessary for the many different processes involved,” says Kenneth Kilby, author of many books on the cooper trade. “The number of sizes of casks made it necessary to have adjustable machines.” Despite productivity advantages, “coopers were resentful of these developments and looked upon machinery as a serious rival,” says Kilby. As a result, it was not uncommon to find cooperages using labor-intensive assembly processes up until World War II.

This article continues on the same venue as the previous article written on “Chiv, Croze, or Howel,” in describing the hand tools used by coopers. The date range represented by these chamfers, knives, and shave tools in the Wine History Project’s collection are from the early 1800s through 1910.

Just after Prohibition was repealed in the United States the Associated Cooperage Industries of America, Inc. (ACIA) was formed on January 29, 1934. They have been powerful in improving the quality of cooperage. The ACIA consists of manufacturers and dealers in tight, slack and beer barrels; manufacturers and dealers in staves and heading, hoops, cooperage machinery and supplies. It is still the trade association of the wooden barrel industry holding an annual fall convention. From information we found that was compiled by F.P. Hankerson, Executive Secretary of the organization in 1944, their purpose and scope are stated as follows.

The main purpose of the Association over the years has been to improve the quality of cooperage. Grade rules and specifications were drafted to ensure quality to the buyer; codes of business ethics and rules of sales and settlements govern the dealings of its members. Only reputable, dependable firms are admitted to membership.

Chamfer Knives

The cooper, or barrel maker, used this type of knife in making barrel staves. The chamfer knife was a large, heavy wood shaver used by a cooper to smooth out the uneven ends of wooden barrels and add a chamfered end. In particular, it carved the inside curve of the barrel stave. And, they are referred to by many descriptors; described as cooper’s chamfer hollowing shave draw knives. Additionally, chamfer tools can be used to smooth sharp or hazardous edges and they also prevent material from breaking or tearing away. But mainly they are used to make a uniform curve on the inside of the barrel.

The tools in the collection are sharp, with plenty of stock left for future sharpening. There are some dings and scrapes noted on the wood handles, but they still look good. Mostly the handles are well attached using a hooked method on a central shaft in the center of the handle. The blades have good clean cutting-edge surfaces; each knife having a different size knife edge. Also, each one has a different size wood handle depending on the maker. However, the diameter of the forged iron “bar” is consistently 1”. Three of them appear to be handmade possibly by a blacksmith, and therefore not marked with any maker’s mark.

The examples from the Wine History Project collection of chamfer knives.

L. & I .J. White Company

143 Perry Street, Buffalo, New York 14204

This tool, WHP-COOP31, has a maker’s mark inscribed on the blade of the tool knife. The firm of L. & I. J. White was established in 1837, and later incorporated in 1892 by two brothers, Leonard and Ichabod Jewett White. This famous company offered tools to the trades. Shipbuilders, coopers and timber framers preferred this brand, one of the few edge tools companies to survive as a family-owned affair. In production from 1837 through 1928, the company produced a full line of chisels, planes, draw knives and many of the tools specific to a skilled trade. Their catalogs listed firmer chisels, cooper’s planes and tools, carriage makers routers, axes, hatchets, adzes, plane irons, paving irons, fireman’s axes, butcher’s cleavers, ice tools, and everything else edge tools. The blade has their partial “1837” oval logo. Interesting tidbit: during the mid-1800s there were at least thirteen tool manufacturers in Buffalo, New York.

Drawknife

This is a primitive blacksmith hand forged drawknife. It is unmarked and has unique style handles which one of them has broken off. We cannot determine if this was originally a longer piece of metal to hold on to, or if it had a wood handle that this medal went through and therefore both pieces are broken off. It seems that the hook at the opposite end would be used to hang the tool. The blade is pulled or “drawn” toward the user. The drawknife is ideally used when the operator is in a seated position astride a shaving horse. The drawknife blade shaves away the entire wood fiber and does not cut against it gradually shaving the work. The operator gently levers the blade to “bite” into the wood and then controls the depth of the cut by raising or lowering the handles as they pull the drawknife towards them. Staves would have been first cut with a draw knife.

Shaves

Here is a drawing of different spokeshaves; either two tangs are attached to the cutter and inserted into the wood stock or there are adjusting screws which hold the cutter in place. The Wine History Project collection has an example of each type.

A spokeshave was made with a wooden body and metal cutting blade. With industrialization metal bodies displaced wood in mass-produced tools. Spokeshaves can be made from flat-bottom, concave, or convex soles, depending on the type of job to be performed. They can include one or more sharpened notches along which the wooden shaft is pulled in order to shave it down to the proper diameter.

Historically, spokeshave blades were made of metal, and the body and handles were wood. Unlike a drawknife, but like a plane, spokeshaves typically have a sole plate that fixes the angle of the blade relative to the surface being worked. By the twentieth-century metal handles and detachable blades had become the most common. A convex, wooden, variant of the spokeshave is called a travisher; at one time mostly used in chairmaking.

Arthur Allan, Glasgow

Trade Label for Arthur Allan

Arthur Allan was born in Catrine, Ayrshire, in 1833. He was the son of Arthur (a power loom dresser) and Agnes. The family were recorded in the 1841 census living in Commercial Road, Gorbals, Glasgow. They were recorded again in the 1851 census at 53 Commercial Road and Arthur was described as an ironmonger’s salesman. In 1855 he established his business as a gun maker at 12 London Street, Glasgow, where he also sold fishing tackle. By 1857, he described himself as a mathematical tool maker as well.

He does not seem to have been recorded in the 1861 census. In 1866, he opened an additional shop at 144 Trongate. The 1871 census records him as a 36 years old gun maker who was married to Catherine, aged 19 (b.1852 in Edinburgh). They were living at 16 Grange Terrace, Cathcart. In the 1881 census the family were living at 41 Albert Road. Four children were recorded including two sons who later joined the business, Arthur (Arthur (III) b.1872) and James G (b.1876). Arthur described himself as a gun maker and ironmonger.

In about 1883 the shop at 12 London Street was expanded into 14 London Street. In the 1891 census the family were recorded living at 21 Queen Mary Avenue, Cathcart. Arthur (III) was described as a gun maker’s assistant, James was still at school. Between 1894 and 1897 the shop at 12-14 London Street was closed and the firm traded only from 144 Trongate. The firm had workshops at 2 Brunswick Street, but the dates are not known.

The 1901 census records Arthur as a gun and fishing tackle maker living with his family at 21 Queen Mary Avenue. Both Arthur (III) and James were described as gun makers. In 1917 Arthur died and one of the two sons took over the business; the other may have left the firm or died. In 1924 the firm bought the stock of William Horton of 98 Buchanan Street, Glasgow. By about this time the firm was a limited company, Arthur Allan Ltd. In about 1926 the company moved to 3 West Nile Street. They were recorded in the telephone directories at 3 West Nile Street up to 1977, possibly later. They closed in about 1985.

Wm. (William) McRae (b. 1802 – d. 1867)

This is an assumption of who could have owned the shaveknife based on location, timeframe, etc.

Born to Roderick and Katherine McRae in Blairich, Sutherlandshire, Scotland. William left Scotland at the age of 20 for Limerick County, Clare, Ireland with Sarah Burns (b. 1805). They settled in Ireland on a farm they named “Bonovoree” where their four children were born. They left Ireland for New Zealand in December 1849 and arrived in Nelson, New Zealand with family and cattle on a property (that they again named “Bonovoree”). They obtained, not sure on these details, of 50,000 acres, where a cob house was built in 1857. The property is still owned by the family and the homestead is lived in by the 5th and 6th generations; or at least it still was in the 1990s from the research we found. (This information found at https://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/)

Name of tool: Shave horse
Date: 1840-1870
Origin: United States
Materials: cast iron, oak wood
Object ID: WHP-COOP107

In our research the earliest depiction of shaving horses dated back to the late 1400s. The next possible portrayal of a shave horse that is documented was an etched plate of a shaving horse in the Latin essay entitled De re Metallica (translates to “On the Nature of Metals”), published in 1556 that catalogued the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals. By the 17th century shave horses, sometimes known as shingle horses, were being used in many trades including chair-making, turning (woodturning is a method in which wooden objects are created), and barrel making.

Most of what is known was about those used in England and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It appears that most shaving horses were built on the same basic platform. This included a stake-leg bench with four, at times three legs. The bench would be at least long enough to sit and reach the work comfortably, approximately 5 – 5 ½ feet, with cutouts for the knees at about midpoint; and the height was between 17 and 27 inches.

The shave horse is a simple foot-operated device that allows one to hold a stave, freeing one’s hands to be able to work. The cooper would sit near the center of the shaving horse and work, carefully shaving appropriate tapers and bevels to each stave. It was traditionally used with a drawknife or spokeshave but could be used with other tools. The European form, called the “Continental” or “Dumbhead” style had a post that pivots through the center of the bench and ends in the head of the vice. Basically, the same design plans are used to this day to create and build a shave horse.