Parts of a Barrel – To Label on 2 Wooden Cask Drawings

All 14 parts on the diagram

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Start here: 6 main parts 6

Stave A narrow board, usually oak. Edge to edge, staves form the side.
Hoop A metal band that holds the staves tightly together.
Head The flat round end. A barrel has two, top and bottom.
Bilge The widest part of the barrel, where it bulges in the middle.
Bunghole The hole in the bilge for filling and emptying the barrel.
Bung The stopper that seals the bunghole, made of wood or silicone.

The hoops by name 4

Head hoop The hoop nearest each end. Also called the chime hoop.
Bilge hoop The hoop nearest the bilge, the barrel's widest part.
Quarter hoop The hoop between the head hoop and the bilge hoop.
Rivet A small metal pin. Each hoop is fastened with rivets.

Inside the end of the barrel 4

Chime The rim at each end, made by the projecting stave ends.
Croze The groove inside the stave ends that the head fits into.
Heading piece One board of a head, joined edge to edge with its neighbors.
Dowel A wooden pin that joins two heading pieces edge to edge.

How this list was compiled: Part names and facts were checked on 2026-09-20 against nine references, and a part is ringed only if at least two independent ones name it. (1) Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_(profession) . (2) Wiktionary entries for the cooper's senses of the words: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stave , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hoop , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/head , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bilge , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bung , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chine , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chime , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chimb , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/croze , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heading , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cant , https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/howel . (3) The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article Cooperage, public domain, on Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Cooperage . (4) A US barrel seller's three barrel anatomy charts and two articles on how a barrel is made: https://www.barrelsdirect.com/barrel-anatomy/ , https://www.barrelsdirect.com/the-barrel-blog/how-a-wooden-barrel-is-made/ , https://www.barrelsdirect.com/the-barrel-blog/art-making-oak-barrel/ . (5) US Code of Federal Regulations, 15 CFR Part 241, barrels for fruits, vegetables and other dry commodities: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/241.3 , https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/241.4 , https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/241.5 . (6) A working cooperage's barrel care, barrel dimensions and oak pages: https://www.worldcooperage.com/barrel-care , https://www.worldcooperage.com/barrel-dimensions/ , https://www.worldcooperage.com/oak-and-cooperage/ . (7) A second barrel seller's article with a parts list: https://www.rockymountainbarrelcompany.com/how-oak-barrels-are-made/ and https://www.rockymountainbarrelcompany.com/art-of-cooperage-and-its-impact-on-wooden-barrels/ . (8) A cooperage's repair price list: https://barrelbuilders.com/barrel-repairs/ . (9) A third barrel seller's articles: https://midwestbarrelco.com/blogs/diy/how-to-break-down-a-whiskey-or-wine-barrel and https://midwestbarrelco.com/blogs/commercial-barrel-aging/barrel-aging-101-how-to-swell-a-dry-or-leaking-barrel . Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-26: a six-hoop wooden barrel on its side with the bung lifted out, the same barrel upright with its top quarter cut away, and an enlargement of the cut stave end; the upright barrel's points were set from this geometry. Our own geometry; nothing traced or copied; the text sources are listed in this dataset's source. Licence: own work

How it works

These are the parts of a barrel made of wood, the cooper's cask, not a gun barrel. One drawing lays it on its side with the bung lifted out. A second stands it on end, top cut away, to show how a head is held.

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What holds a barrel together

The quiz asks the 6 main parts first, then the other 8. The staves stay watertight with no glue and no screws. Each stave is wider in the middle and tapered at the ends, so a ring of them closes into a bulge, and six metal hoops hammered down over the staves squeeze the joints shut. Each hoop is fastened with rivets.

How the head stays in

Near each end a groove runs round the inside of the staves: the croze, named like the cooper's tool that cuts it. The beveled edge of the head sits in that groove. A head is several heading pieces, pinned edge to edge with wooden dowels. The second drawing enlarges one cut stave end to show the fit.

For a crossword clue, the four-letter parts are hoop, head and bung. Stave, bilge, chime, croze, rivet and dowel have five.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a barrel called?

The boards are staves, the metal bands are hoops, and the two flat round ends are heads. The fattest part is the bilge. The hole in it is the bunghole, and the stopper that closes it is the bung.

What are the metal rings on a barrel called?

Hoops. On a six-hoop barrel each half has three: the head hoop at the end, the bilge hoop near the middle and the quarter hoop between them. Today hoops are usually galvanized iron. Historically they were flexible strips of wood.

What is the hole in a barrel called?

The bunghole. It is cut in the bilge, the widest part, and the barrel is filled and emptied through it. Its stopper is the bung, made of wood or silicone.

What is the rim of a barrel called?

The chime, also spelled chine or chimb. It is the rim at each end, formed by the ends of the staves where they stand past the head. The hoop nearest it is the head hoop, also called the chime hoop.