Barrels - Wood or Metal hoops

[Littleneckhalfshell]

Patrick Hand suggested:

"Hey... A GAoP Encampment, or did barrels have wood or metal hoops..... new thread time......"

So here it is, a thread to explore the evidence of when barrels aboard ships might have been held together by metal hoops.

I start with evidence I ran across at the following site http://www.melfisher.org/interimreport1.pdf

The 'St. John's Bahamas Shipwreck Project'

Excavation shows remains of iron barrel hoops. From page 32 of the Pdf file.....

"Barrel Hoops, Fragments of iron bands or hoops are all that have survived from wooden casks or barrels. No intact examples have been encountered. They are ca. 26mm wide, but no work has been done to determine their diameters or the number that might be represented. The barrels would most likely have been used to store a supply of fresh water and other provisions for the voyage."

From the conclusions regarding the age of the wreck the following was written.

"From the coins, it is certain that this ship sailed sometime after 1554 but not likely that it was wrecked with a period much beyond that. Artifacts such as...... saw their greatest popularity in the first half of the 16th century. With such a large number o fearlier period artifacts, it seems unlikely that in the final analysis this ship will be found to have been operating beyond ca 1575"

I therefore submit, that if iron cask hoops were used that early, that certainly they would be found aboard ships of the GAOP.

[Littleneckhalfshell]

http://www.qaronline.org/map.swf site two for evidence of iron hoops.

Queen Ann's Revenge Shipwreck - bow section

"Over a dozen sets of iron cask hoops and numerous pieces have been found."

[Littleneckhalfshell]

http://www.infomotions.com/etexts/gutenber...t03/mf05v10.htm

THE MAY-FLOWER AND HER LOG

July 15, 1620--May 6, 1621

Chiefly from Original Sources

By AZEL AMES, M.D.

Member of Pilgrim Society, etc.

BOOK 5.CHAPTER VII

QUARTERS, COOKING, PROVISIONS

"Winslow, in the letter cited, urges

that "your casks for beer . . . be iron bound, at least for the first

[end] tyre" [hoop]."

So as previously mentioned in the earlier part of this thread, under GAOP encampment, wooden hoops were found along with iron, iron perfered at the very least on the ends. (even as early as the mayflower)

But from what I found in regard to the QAR, full sets of iron hoops were found on the wreck site, suggesting that if possible, for sea service, iron hoops were prefered. many of the pictures of barrels submitted with apparent wooden hoops are it seems in use on shore, could it be possible that for the difficult needs of being aboard ship, that iron was the prefered hoop, and thus in a camp made of a ships company, might not iron as well as wood hoops been found? Still have not got a good handle on the 'size' of the hoops found in sets on the QAR, so the question still stands if hoops on smaller casks were of iron or wood, or a combination of the two. I continue the search.......

[Captain Midnight]

That's some fantastic stuff! Thanks for the good research brother!

[Gentleman of Fortune]

That QAR site is pretty cool!

Its a good question about the size of the barrels found. In another thread, there are a few posts that talk about water (and possibly beer) iron hooped casks being used for a long voyages... but even then its expressed as a percentage of the overall casks used for that purpose, and we could assume that the barrels for water storage for a long voyage would be large... 60 gal or more.

Again, they certainly had the ability to make iron hoops during the GAoP, and I am not refuting their existence... I just question their universal use for every size cask. The QAR wreck shows a dozen iron hoops, but I wish they could give us a general idea of their size. It makes me wonder then what proportion they would be to all the casks on board... but we won't know as it seems that the wood has deteriorated.

I am not sure about the wood hoops for land and iron for sea duty.... I have posted several pictures above that are in a naval context and the hoops are definitely wood.

The other part of the puzzle is that very few folks are making wooden hooped barrels anyway.

Great stuff though... keep it coming!

GoF

[Silver]

i have two items of intrest to post: first if you look at a milleter ruler and see what 26mm looks like i think it would be a band on a small barrel or keg. second, google -avondster- this ship went down on the 2nd of july 1659. then go to finds from the avondster.

[Littleneckhalfshell]

On the side of wooden hoops aboard ship, I present the following from the Vasa ( a little bit before the GAOP - sank on maiden voyage 1628) from the site

http://www.abc.se/~m10354/publ/vasa.htm#Addendum%20B

Site mentions that beer barrels still containing fluid were brought up in 1959, though not identified on the site as to what the barrels held, or if these were beer barrels or some other barrel, the following picture is posted on the site in reference to conserving smaller artifacts.

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w132/li...Vasabarrels.jpg