Saturday, August 10, 10 am to 4 pm & Sunday, August 11, 10 am to 3 pm

This workshop is now full. Join the HMM email list to be notified of upcoming workshops.

Come to Hanford Mills the weekend of August 10-11 to make a cask with traditional coopers Bob Allers and Nate George. Materials will be provided and participants will have access to tools and training in order to complete a reproduction early nineteenth-century cask. Direction, guidance, and experience will be shared.

The cost for the workshop is $190 for members, $225 for non-members.  (If you’re not yet a member, now is a great time to join. You’ll save on the cost of this workshop, and receive membership benefits for a year. Find out about membership today.) Price of the workshop includes the materials costs for the cask.

The prerequisite for this workshop is taking the bucket-making workshop. If you haven’t taken the bucket-making workshop but already have similar skills, please contact Kajsa Harley.

Participants should bring a bag lunch and (if they have them) apron and gloves.

About Cooper Bob Allers

Bob Allers began to learn the trade of coopering (making buckets, barrels, and casks) while part of the Artisans Program at Fort Stanwix National Monument. He and Nate George have both trained under the master cooper at Genesee Country Village in Mumford, NY, and he has also taken workshops with the cooper at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts.

For his presentations he sets up his traveling cooperage and demonstrates the tools used by the cooper to construct buckets or casks by hand in the manner of an eighteenth century craftsman. You may have seen him at the Woodsmen’s Festival at Hanford Mills Museum. Bob exhibits and uses an extensive collection of period and reproduction hand tools in his interactive programs with visitors.