Stillage made easy

[Ted Briggs]

After cutting wood to fit barrel profile it seams impossible to get a exact fit. Those compound angle curves are a bitch to cut. The answer is bondo!!

Slot the wood every 1/4" with band saw/jij saw, paste wax liberally on barrel where you marked the stillage to fit. Apply 1x2" strapping to stillage for "feet" to hold workpiece, apply liberal amount of bondo to it and place on barrel. After it hardens, pop it off and clean off excess bondo and you have stillage that fits your barrel perfectly.

Maybe overkill, but I spent my youth working in a automotive pattern/mold shop.....

[BrewinLou]

Not too bad.

I cut mine with a jig saw. It worked fine. I held the wood up to the end of the Firkin and ran a pencil line around the edge of the firkin to get the proper circle size. One side a bit deeper then the other. Then I measured the distance from end to end so the stillage would sit in the seam between the tank and the handles at either end. No tough angles needed. The best part is a cut the wood from an old pallet in the back, some of the bulk bottle pallets we get are hard woods from south of the border.