Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Pail turner?
Jeremy Osner
>A friend of mine is doing some research and asked if I knew what the occupation of a "pail turner" would have been. I suspect that pails were made mainly by coopers, but would some part of them have been turned? Has anyone heard of this job title?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Re: Pail turner?
Bob Nelson
>Jeremy: I wish you hadn't asked this question. I've never heard of such a trade in 30+ years of involvement with old tools and trades. BUT, I plugged it into Google and got back hundreds of listings from old directories, censuses, death announcements, etc., that imply it was a pretty common occupation. Now it will nag at me until I find more. There were three types of coopers - wet, dry, and white. White coopers were the ones that made pails; since no bending of staves or such was involved, that was considered the easiest and "lowest" type of coopering. But calling them pail turners doesn't seem to ring right. I wonder if some pails were made by simply turning down a hunk of tree trunk on a lathe? Or - - -. Darn you Jeremy! :-) Bob
Re: Sorry :)
Jeremy Osner
>
Re: Pail turner? *LINK*
Brian, Boothbay Harbor
>2nd paragraph on link gives some info on pail maker.
Not sure if it's right, but a direction.
Interesting to look over old trades that are no longer practiced.
While looking around for pail maker I found out what a "Puddler" was. interesting!
http://www.20000-names.com/gypsy_names.htm
Re: Pail turner?
Bob Nelson
>I've been beating the bushes looking for clues about what Jeremy's "pail turner" did for a living - with little success. Maybe I'm hung up on a purely semantic distinction, but I continue to think that it's something other than a "pail maker". In support of that opinion, I found an 1870 listing of occupations on which there were listings for both "pail turner" and "bucket maker". I'd guess the "bucket maker" was the same as what I previously called a "white cooper" and I wouldn't think both names would be on the list if they were the same thing. Google has multiple listings for both "pail turner" and "pail maker", but I didn't find anything other than the one 1870 list that included both names. I found an old EAIA Chronicle story about coopering and related trades; it had several comments about pail/bucket making but never used the term "turning" in connection with them. I've looked into the possibility that a "pail" used to be something other than a synonym for "bucket", but haven't found any evidence of that. I'm fast running out of places to look and ideas to pursue. Darn you Jeremy! Bob
Is this close? *LINK*
Thom Trail, Powder Springs, GA
>
bucket turner
Re: I do believe you've got it!
Jeremy Osner
>