Wine Barrel Cutting Jig?

[Cary Falk]

I thought the staves were loose so to speak. Cut the barrel and the barrel will collapse, No? I have read posts where people screwed the staves to the metal rings.

[John Poole]

Yes, the staves will come loose, but they will retain their shape if treated carefully and you minimize the force on the edge just cut. When you fill the half barrel with soil, the pressure of the soil keeps the staves in place.

[Jerry Miner]

I like johnny means idea of keeping the barrel upright. If you can jig up the saw to be horizontal and halfway up the barrel, the barrel could stand on a dolly on a flat floor and spin around. A wedge or three would keep the kerf open and avoid pinching the blade.

John--- I'm in Yountville and would love to see this when you get it together. I've always just cut around the barrel "cowboy style" with a Skilsaw, but then I've only done a few at a time, too.

[John Poole]

Hi Jerry (neighbor),

Yeah, the idea of taking a 60 lb item and maneuvaring it around a 2 pound item is the tail wagging the dog. I don't want to have to buy another specialty tool, especially since cutting through white oak that is 1 to 1 1/2? thick -- that takes some horsepower. I cut just as you described, but always seem to end up with a slightly irregular edge. The perfectionism in me wants to cleanly cut.

John

[Jak Kelly]

I was thinking that a table-saw jig might work; a 3 - sided box with a floor, kind of like a sled, the two sides would have a hemisphere cutouts in them to match the barrels, you could get a nylon edge protector like they use in industrial electrical work to cap-off the hemisphere cuts (the nylon edge protector is smooth and slippery and would allow the barrel to rotate smoothly), use your table saw fence to but one end of the barrel to, position the jig and barrel in the saw until you achieve your cutting depth, then simply rotate the barrel.
This would also be taking into consideration that all barrels are symmetrically close to the same size, like a 1/4" or less.

Might be a dumb idea, or maybe not what you are looking for, but just a thought.

[John Poole]

This would also be taking into consideration that all barrels are symmetrically close to the same size, like a 1/4" or less.

Wine barrels come in a variety of sizes and shapes, the only standardization seems to be a range of capacity, e.g. 55-60 gallons. Such a device would need to be adaptable to a variety of curves.

[Jak Kelly]

Wine barrels come in a variety of sizes and shapes, the only standardization seems to be a range of capacity, e.g. 55-60 gallons. Such a device would need to be adaptable to a variety of curves.

Hmmmmmm.................Maybe you make the side panels with adjustable sides, I'm thinking slots and wing nuts, so you can adjust the hemisphere part of the jig up and down????

[Floyd Mah]

Ha, ha. An opportunity to think outside the box, or barrel, as the case may be. Why would you want to move an extremely heavy barrel when you can move the lighter, controllable saw (as asked by John above)? Why use a circular saw and risk kickback when a jigsaw or Sawzall will do the job nicely? If the final cut is slightly irregular, dress it with a belt-sander afterwards (or maybe you can conjure up some elaborate drum sander or router jig). All you need to do is follow a line with your cutting tool and you are done.