Saturday 30 December 2017

THE COOPERS

  The coopers were always good joiners and carpenters (if a person knew how to work with templates, he was even more able to work with the angle). Nevertheless, cooperage required some specialization.
 The economy, especially the natural economy, always needed riveted utensils: large and small tanks (for the manufacture of leather, for boiling the wort and grain storage); vats for salting of mushrooms, cucumbers, cabbage, basins and tubs for storage of kvas and water heating stones, attachments for beer and wort, tubs, buckets, pail, etc. All these goods were supplied by the coopers.
  Although the technology here is very different, they probably made the same aspen tree boxes for the girls' dowries. No rivets and no hoops were required. Master hollowed out the insides of the aspen tree's thick, smooth trunk, sawed and spread the workpiece the same way as the canoes are spread. The result was a wide flat board. Next, he did a notch, or rather, a cut on the inner side of the future transverse fold, steamed and bent it into the box. Next, he gouged holes, inserted the bottom and sewed with linden bast. Now it is only left to hang the cover. It turned out to be a convenient, light repository for the woman's stuff.

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