I have a wine barrel that is currently being used as a decorative table and I would like to cut and fashion a door out of the middle of it to serve as a cabinet. My (limited) understanding of coopering is that the steel bands are heated before being applied to the barrel so they shrink and pull the staves in tight. My concern is if I go to cut that band (which runs through the equator of the barrel) I won't be able to get it fitted back to shape again. If I plan to add more rivets around the cuts and add bracing around the barrel to compensate for whatever structural weakness I cause with cutting i think it would work out?
in short, will cutting a rectangular shaped hole in the side of a barrel cause too much instability that I won't be able to keep it barrel shaped?