During the workshop you will discover how to make a tub. You will learn how to put the wooden staves together, attach the galvanized iron rings, insert the bottom and finally how to completely finish a tub. During the process you use a hammer and a float to tap the rings onto the tub. After inspection by workshop teacher Marleen Bonami, you finish the tub with sandpaper.

Good job? Is your tub not falling apart? Then you can proudly go home with your own finished tub!

A cooperage is a workshop where wooden vats and barrels are made. Barrels are used to store and transport liquids, such as wine and beer. Barrels were also indispensable in historical shipbuilding. We also call the craft that is carried out in the workshop cooperage.

The cooper’s profession is a niche specialization that is carried out in Flanders and Belgium by few woodworkers, carpenters and the former ‘coopers’. The profession of a traditional cooper has virtually disappeared, because nowadays the vats or barrels are increasingly made by machine. Nevertheless, the craft is still very relevant for repairing barrels (from 200 to no less than 27,000 liters!) in breweries. Nowadays, workshop giver Marleen Bonami still makes tubs for laurel and boxwood nurseries. Marleen is currently also working on flower tubs for the Rubens House in Antwerp. Their citrus trees are planted in the tubs following the reopening of the museum.

The workshop was made possible by the Leie Schelde Cultural Region.