It's Season 2, Episode 7, 'Mule Logger' I recently watched it on Netflix. The starting cost for a new one is around $500-$600.ĭirty Jobs did an episode at the cooperage across the street at Seguin Moreaux that's worth watching. It's a real marvel of woodworking and geometry. And they're surprisingly easy to move around by hand, despite their weight. I'm still amazed that they don't leak without any glue. The factory is pretty mechanized, but the physics of building a barrel are still the same - use heat, pressure and steam to bend the wood, toast the insides to caramelize the sugars in the wood, and bind it all together with metal hoops. Barrel making is a low tech relic from thousands of years ago that has somehow survived. I indulged my interest in barrel making by visiting one of the handful of cooperages in wine country - Demptos in Napa. I suppose one could renew the color just by reapplying red wine itself. I had the idea to use UV varnish, but it darkened the color almost to a black.
The vibrance and saturation of the wine stained oak was really compelling, but it faded over time, even indoors with very little sunlight. The burgundy colored mosaic was a 5ft x 10ft wall installation made from the inner barrel portion cut into 1/8in veneers. I made a matrix of them by arranging the strips on the floor, then stapling the pieces together with a narrow crown pneumatic stapler. Same thing happened with the oak staves while I was cutting them on the table saw and dropping the scraps on the ground.
Super stach squeed install#
A designer saw it along the way and I got commissioned to install mezzanine railing panels at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, CA. I showed it in three different venues before I decided I was tired of hauling it around, and decided to sell it at a 'rock bottom' price. I was pretty happy with the results although the thing ended up weighed a ton. So I constructed a metal frame and welded the bent hoops into position. While bending the metal hoops so they'd fit in the trash can, I noticed an interesting pattern developing on the floor that reminded me of a fingerprint. I was on a wine barrel kick for a while and got inspired by the scraps left over from building my table. It actually happened to a winemaker friend and he lost about 200 bottles of wine! Wine barrels are often resold to distillers who char the insides black and use them as casks for aging whiskey. They can be bored out (like cylinders in an engine) and reused, but there's a risk of getting a bad tasting batch of wine if there are any contaminants inside. Wineries discard them after 3-5 years because they go 'oak neutral', meaning the oak no longer imparts any flavor or other qualities into the wine. And the deep red staining is pretty amazing to look at.ĭry the staves out really well before cutting - it takes a month or so at room temperature indoors.
It's a magical moment to see a super strong barrel collapse into pieces and the aroma of red wine and oak fill the air. The staves separate easily once the hoops are removed - there's no glue, just the pressure from the hoops keeping them together (and swelling of the wood). I ended up buying them from a local reseller for about $90 each (new they're about $500). Living near wine country, I thought they'd be easy to obtain at any winery, but the wineries are not too keen on selling them directly to individuals. Find yourself a used wine barrel (you'll actually need two for a 5ft x 2.5ft top).
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