Proudest Stave

Photo/Story L.Valentin
Feb 15, 2018
3 min read

Good things come to those who wait! Yes, I waited a long time to begin enjoying coopering, one of my two personal creative goals the other being glass blowing. I'm excited to begin the journey to mastering the art of coopering with an apprenticeship under the tutelage of Justin Kennick at Old Sturbridge Village. Training day was here and as soon as I heard Justin say "Ok, this is a shaving horse" I knew I had to have one in my garage ASAP!

No shaving horse yet but I did get my hands on my very first coopering tool, a sharp drawknife! I'm now in an Ebay bidding war for my next tool, so I might be a proud owner of a hollowing knife by the time I publish this post. The cooper training was amazing, covering a great deal of information with lots of practice time on the shaving horse. We learned about the basic coopering tools and the techniques required in the process of creating the staves, which are the walls that make up a cask.

"If you drop a tool, let it hit the ground", Justin said as he began sharing the sacred no-no's of coopering. Tools can be fixed or replaced, a finger on the other hand.....well, you get the picture!

We learned the function of basic tools like a drawknife which levels and take away the excess as you shape the stave from the piece of wood. The hollowing knife hollows out the inside of the stave. The jointer plane shaves a 90 degree angle on the finished stave and of course the shaving horse acts as a vise, holding your starting piece of wood in place. Justin honored his cooperage mentor by borrowing the phrase he heard from him so many times, "Do another one." This of course was referring to starting another stave once you finished one.

I loved bringing the soon to be stave up to the hoop as you eyeball the right curvature while shaving the correct shape with your drawknife. You shave, you look, you shave some more , you stay away from the edges until your curve matches your hoop. This is such a simple and honest process and I love it.

Tom Kelleher stopped by and invited us on a tour of the OSV cooper collections. We got to see some period tools and different types of casks, kegs, tubs and odd pieces collected by Mr. A.B. Wells, who loved collecting oddities. This personal tour of the collections lead to probably one of my most important discoveries yet,

Tom Kelleher's 1830's love crush to Mrs. Jesse Hartshorn! (Lucy Ann Morse) portrait by William Matthew Prior. That's what I call falling in love with your work! He also showed us a portrait of who clearly is a ancestor of Michael Jackson. OSV Portrait Tours, now that's just as good an idea as having a monkey as a pet for the Asa Knight store.

The first step of my training is complete and I will begin working at the OSV Cooper Shop this Sunday February 18th. Thank you Justin and Tom for taking the time to share your knowledge and support during this amazing new chapter in my life. I also want to say thanks to Kim Adams for believing in me and making this possible.