Patent Publication Number: US-4484688-A

Title: Rectangular barrel for aging whiskey

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates to white oak barrels for use in aging whiskey. More particularly, this invention relates to white oak barrels of rectangular construction in which the staves are flat and planar rather than bowed, as with the prior-art round barrels. This invention, in a preferred embodiment, involves four wall sections and four triangular corner members of tongue-and-groove construction so that the pieces can be fitted together in watertight engagement. The head staves forming the head section are, in a preferred embodiment, of identical dimension to each other, but shorter than the wall staves. Again, the head staves are of tongue-and-groove construction. The rectangular barrel-like container of this invention can be made through mass production techniques and do not require the time and the skill required for the individually handmade round barrels of the prior art. 
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART 
     There has been a long-standing need in the whiskey distilling industry for a square barrel-like container for some years because the conventional prior-art round barrel requires a large storage space volume compared with the volume of its contents. A square barrel-like container will provide a space savings of about 40%. However, insofar as I am aware, despite the many proposals made in the past, rectangular or square barrels for the distilling industry have been unsuccessful because of the stringent requirements imposed thereon. As a result, even today, conventional round barrel-shaped containers, so well known in the art, have been and still are in use. These barrels, having a volume of approximately 50 gallons, are made of staves that are quarter-sawn from stave bolts of white oak. Customarily, body stave bolts are 39 inches long and head stave bolts are 23 inches long. Depending on the size of the tree, from 20 to 40 staves that have been cut on a barrel saw to provide the double-arch shape, are assembled to form the body of a barrel in a process which involves a large number of manual steps by skilled workmen. Flat head staves, having two planar surfaces, are secured in a croze and steel hoops of differing diameters are placed over the heads of the barrel and driven toward the center to compress the body staves together against the head staves. The joints between two staves in the prior round-barrel art have been of the butt joint variety. Because of the complex operation of the assembly and the fitting together of thirty or more staves by use of a metal ring, and subjecting the wood to steam and other treatments that are necessary to align the staves individually, it is very expensive to use tongue-and-groove body staves to make a smooth joint. Also, coopers have learned in the last 2000 years of making round barrels how to make a barrel sufficiently tight so that liquid does not drip from between the joints. Where leaks do appear after the barrel is filled, the leak can normally be stopped by tightening one or more of the hoops. Additionally, according to the round-barrel art, the staves must be quarter-sawn of white oak. It is well known in the art that quarter-sawn staves with the grain of the white oak free from sap are approximately one inch thick. Currently, whiskey is aged in barrels having a capacity of about 50 gallons that have stave lengths of about 36 inches and a head diameter of about 23 inches. When wetted, a wood stave will expand a different amount longitudinally than laterally, and a flat head set into the croze of a rectangular body will expand at a different rate than the side parallel to the grain of the head. The difference is the source of leaks. 
     As can be seen, the hand cooperage of barrels is an old art practiced by skilled artisans. Unfortunately, in today&#39;s economy, it is essentially impossible to justify the expense of such fine craftsmanship. Applicant is aware of the patent to Morris, U.S. Pat. No. 3,462,038, which proposes a rectangular-shaped barrel. The Morris patent, however, disclosed a series of fingers for joining the staves together. These fingers, as for example in FIG. 2, were in the form of a rectangular piece, whereas in Fig. 7, the finger takes on ovoid shape, and in FIG. 9, a diamond shape with truncated ends. Additionally, Morris requires a bonding agent for holding the various staves together. Unfortunately, applicant&#39;s experience has been that whiskey is an extremely strong solvent for most bonding agents, and even if only a small part of the bonding agent is dissolved, it has an adverse effect on the taste of the whikey. Spooner, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,099, proposed a square-shaped box-like container which was pre-stressed, so as to hold the heads and the walls together. Wakeem, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,456,827, proposes wooden staves of general tongue-and-groove construction. Wakeem utilizes a generally rounded corner stave. 
     SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION 
     According to the present invention, the wooden staves, both for the wall sections and head sections, can be mass produced with conventional woodworking machinery. It is not necessary, according to the present invention, to use quarter-sawn oak staves, although those can be used if desired. It is, of course, necessary to use white oak, which is later charred according to standard distilling practice. The present invention utilizes uniform, flat, planar staves having a tongue-and-groove construction which a croze located at the top end at the bottom. The wall staves fit into a complementary tongue or a complementary groove of a special triangular corner piece made with a planar section truncated at the junction of the leg of the triangle and the base of the triangle. Additionally, the triangular corner piece contains a croze at the top and at the bottom, near the planar surface formed by the base of the triangle. The head section is formed of uniform, flat, planar white oak staves, each having a tongue and a groove which are fitted together to form the head section. The two most lateral staves of the head section are shaped along one edge so as to fit snugly into the croze of the wall section, and are sawn at about 45° at the ends and shaped to fit into the croze of the two triangular corner members. Four wooden bumpers are arranged transversely across the side of the wall section and extending to the edge of the triangular corner piece near the top and bottom of the wall sections. Each of the wooden bumper members are tapered so that a metal strap encircling the four pieces can be tightened to apply pressure to the apex of the triangle, which force is translated into forces extending at right angles to cause compressive engagement of the corner members and the wall sections&#39; tongue-and-groove to form a watertight engagement. Additionally, the bumper members provide room for the tines of forklift trucks to lift the rectangular or square barrels to be placed on pallets for storage or transport. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a sectional view of the assembled rectangular barrel of this invention. 
     FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the rectangular barrel of this invention. 
     FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken on line 3--3 of FIG. 2, illustrating the relationship of the head stave engaged in the croze of the wall section, and the relationship of the external bumper and metal strap thereto. 
     FIG. 4 is a fragmentary, partially exploded, perspective view of the rectangular barrel illustrating the steps of its construction. 
     FIG. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view taken along line 5--5 of FIG. 1. 
     FIG. 6 is a fragmentary view in the form of a vector diagram illustrating the direction and general magnitude of the forces which tend to hold the staves and corner members in watertight tongue-and-groove engagement. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     Referring now to the drawings, the finished barrel is designated by B. The barrel consists of four wall sections 10 fabricated of white oak staves 11 of uniform dimensions. Normally, the white oak staves have a width in the range of 3-5 inches and a thickness in the range of from about 3/4 to 11/4 inches. A particular advantage of the present invention is that these staves can be mass produced by well-known methods, rather than being hand-made, as has been previously practiced in the roundbarrel coopers&#39; art. Each of the staves 11 has a tongue 12 and a complementary groove 13. Additionally, there is a croze 15 located at the top and at the bottom of each of the staves 11. The barrel also contains four triangular corner members 20, having an apex 21, two legs 22, and a base 23. The junction between leg 22 and the base 23 is truncated to form a planar portion 24 equal in width to one of the wall stave sections 11. A tongue 25 extends along the edge of one of the truncated planar portions 24 and a corresponding groove 26 extends along the edge of the other truncated planar portion. The head section of the barrel 30 is made up of head staves 31, again, of uniform dimensions, and again, each containing a tongue 32 on one edge and a corresponding groove 33 on the other. Each of the ends 34 of the head staves 31 are shaped so as to fit snugly into the croze 15 of the wall staves 11 of the wall section 10. The two lateral edge head staves 35 are shaped on one edge 36 to fit the croze of the staves 11 forming the wall section 10 and are sawn 37 at about 45°, and again shaped to fit into the croze 27 on the base portion of the triangular corner member. One of these lateral edge head staves 35 contains a projecting tongue 32 to fit into a corresponding groove 33 of an adjacent head stave and the other lateral edge head stave contains a corresponding groove to engage with the projecting tongue of an adjacent head stave. Both of these edge head staves, however, are shaped along one edge 36 so as to fit snugly into the croze 15 formed by the staves 11 of the wall section 10. 
     Externally of the rectangular barrel are located four bumper bars 45 which extend across the width of a wall section 10 and across the width of two corner members 20. Each of the bars has tapered ends 46 and is encircled with a metal compression strap 47. Application of pressure to the metal compression strap, therefore, applies pressure to the apex 21 of the corner member and additionally, to the side wall sections 10, to bring the individual staves into tongue-and-groove engagement. The forces acting upon the corner member 20 by reason of pressure applied by the metal compression strap 47 are S, which resolves itself at right angles as S-1 and S-2, so as to be in line with the tongue 12 and the groove 13 of the staves 11 forming the wall section 10. Therefore, by application of pressure to the apex 21 of the triangular corner member 20, the entire triangular member and the wall sections can be brought into tight tongue-and-groove engagement and the head staves 31 and 35 can be brought into tight engagement with the croze 15 of the wall stave section 10 and the croze 27 of the triangular corner member sections 20 to produce a watertight fit. The pressure of the whiskey W from the inside is also indicated and the expansion of the wooden stabes 11 due to swelling of the wooden staves is illustrated as E. It will be noted that all of these forces tend to cooperate in forming a watertight tongue-and-groove compression fit of the staves together without the use of adhesives or bonding agents. 
     Additionally, as has been previously mentioned, it is not necessary to hand-make each stave and assemble them by skilled craftsmen as has been the practice in the past. The barrels can be produced by mass production in a much more economical way than has previously been known in this art. FIG. 4 illustrates the steps of producing a barrel of this invention. As will be noted, two of the corner members 20 are engaged with three wall sections 10. Additionally, the edge head stave 35 is fitted into the croze 27 of the corner members 20 and into the croze 15 formed by the wall staves 11. Thereafter, each of the head staves 35 at either end is fitted so that its shaped ends 34 fit into the croze 15 formed by the two wall sections 10. The remaining two corner members 20 are fitted with the remaining wall section 10 and the staves are placed into position. Thereafter, the next-to-the last head stave 31 is fitted into position and the edge head stave 35 is fitted so that the angularly sawn ends 37 fit into the croze 27 of the remaining two triangular corner members 20. Once this has been accomplished, the entire remaining wall section can be brought into engagement with the three wall sections already assembled and the bumper bars 45 placed into position for application of the metal compression strap 47. Thereafter, pressure is applied as previously mentioned, so that the vector forces are translated at right angles from the apex 21 of the triangular member, thus pulling the tongue-and-groove of the corner member 20 and the tongue-and-groove of the wall staves 11 into close, watertight engagement. By the same token, the head staves 35 are pulled into tight engagement with the croze 15 of the wall section 10 and the croze 27 of the triangular corner members 20 to produce a watertight rectangular container. 
     Many modifications will occur to those skilled in the art from the detailed description hereinabove given, which is meant to be exemplary in nature and non-limiting, except so as to be commensurate in scope with the appended claims.