Square Barrels VS Round Barrels

[memaquay]

Got a great deal on square barrels for the club. They are 65 ltr, about two or three inches taller than regular barrels, with a slightly smaller opening. They only fit in most canoes when placed from gunwale to gunwale. Anyway, they look pretty cool.

Anyone ever use them?

 

[Iskweo]

I have not seen them but they look pretty good. Did they come with the harnesses too? I just made a new harness out of an old rucksack bag and some straps...for use with 30 li barrels. I like the flat backs on yours...I imagine they will be much easier to carry.

Christy

 

[yellowcanoe]

.. Some folks have gotten the round blue barrels here but square no..The flat backs ought to stay put in the boat better too.

 

[Odyssey]

Those virgin white jumbo jars are just asking to be decorated by the students. How about a friendly "tag the tub" competition between Outers?
Squared barrels sound sensible to me. I like them but I hope you don't have to downsize the fry pans to fit.

 

[pblanc]

I have a squared 8 gallon barrel that I bought from US Plastic Corp. which also sells a 15 gallon version. The square shape does give it less tendency to roll around in the boat and it fits better if you want to put it into a pack. Mine spends most of its time in a Duluth Pack Camp Kitchen pack.

 

[Muskrat]

The square ones are typically thinner plastic. That's just generally speaking. I've never seen white ones that size and shape. Yours look sturdy though. Nice clamps and lids.

 

[Canotrouge]

Look great, Any more available?

 

[Pbutkovich]

My son and I were just complaining about how our round barrels dig in to our spines on long carries and wondering why no one ever contoured at least one side for the shape of a back. These look better than round.

 

[snapper]

Nice looking addition to your gear. I hope they work out as well as anticipated. Also like Odyssey's "tag the tub" idea. I'm sure your students could be very creative with that idea.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Guest]

Got a great deal on square barrels for the club. They are 65 ltr, about two or three inches taller than regular barrels, with a slightly smaller opening. They only fit in most canoes when placed from gunwale to gunwale.

What are the dimensions? A couple inches taller than a 60L would be 27 – 28 inches tall, not that onerous for a big barrel in a tandem tripping canoe.

I think I like the flat sides. Probably for no-roll canoe storage, probably for use in camp as well.

The thought has crossed my mind when camped on a steep ledge site that if I knocked over the barrel it could roll 3 feet and plunge down a cliff into the river.



That compression stuff bag wasn’t on the ledge long, but there wasn’t a lot of space left to stage gear when packing up.

 

[Odyssey]

Now I remember where I've seen those giant jars before. Mason jars. Looks like yours are filled with marshmallow, icing sugar, or mayo. It'll be interesting to see any change in packing strategy, not that it's complicated. They look an ideal answer to simplifying gear hauling for a group. Though you may need some labels.

 

[Guest]

Those virgin white jumbo jars are just asking to be decorated by the students. How about a friendly "tag the tub" competition between Outers?

Though you may need some labels.

How do you identify the barrels when using multiple “whose-barrel” or “what-are-the-contents” in a large group?

Permanent, easily visible #1, #2, #19 stenciled on the barrels? Sharpied duct tape? On all four sides or just on the lids? Or nothing at all?

I’d be having a fun shop day with high intensity reflective tape and exercise foam inserts for the lids.

 

[memaquay]

I'm actually picking up a bunch of heavy duty vinyl stick on numbers today for the barrels and the new paddles. I also had our logo done for the canoes. Will post pics when we get them on. I will be moving into the highest level of organization in my life, square barrels for kids, yellow barrels for Med pack and tool barrel, short blue barrels for food barrels, and dry bags for tents, blue for boys, yellow for girls.

Should only take about one day for the kids to destroy my organization scheme, and another day before we're all wearing garbage bags in the rain.

 

[Guest]

I'm actually picking up a bunch of heavy duty vinyl stick on numbers today for the barrels and the new paddles. I also had our logo done for the canoes. Will post pics when we get them on. I will be moving into the highest level of organization in my life, square barrels for kids, yellow barrels for Med pack and tool barrel, short blue barrels for food barrels, and dry bags for tents, blue for boys, yellow for girls.

Should only take about one day for the kids to destroy my organization scheme, and another day before we're all wearing garbage bags in the rain.

I don’t know what material those square barrels are made from, probably some poly plastic like the blue barrels. When I reflective taped and stickered our blue barrels I had a little experiment going, mostly from a lack of planning and thinking ahead.

I alcohol wiped everything first, but I neglected to flame treat the spots where some tape and stickers were going at first. The edges of all the un-flamed (propane torch blue tongue quick pass) tape and stickers quickly began to peel free. The places I remembered to flame treat are all still soundly stuck.

You would have liked the garbage bag I sent home with Chip, it was one of those industrial trash hopper cart 6 foot tall x 4 foot wide bags. Willie got one too.

I like the numbered sticker and color coded organizational scheme for group travel.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I've never used barrels, but square seems to make more sense to me than round for reasons already stated. In addition, they could be a stable seat for kids when laid sideways. Why are canoe blue barrels round? Are they actually used for something else primarily?

 

[Guest]

. Why are canoe blue barrels round? Are they actually used for something else primarily?

Yup. For shipping all kinds of stuff from dried products to chemicals to. . . . . .freaking bird seed.

UPS truck came down the driveway a few years ago and when I went out to meet the driver I noticed a 30L blue barrel in his truck.

“Hey, what’s in that barrel?”

He got it out. 30L of birdseed from some company. I scribbled down the company name. I go through a crap ton of bird seed.

I lost the piece of paper with the scribble. I have since Googled ever imaginable variation of “30L barrel of birdseed” and can not find a vendor who ships it that way.

A 30L barrel with every order of birdseed? Oh heck yeah.

 

[Odyssey]

Up here the story goes that in the 80's a friend of Bill Mason tried repurposing olive barrels for canoe tripping. You could probably still find food (or chemical) plastic barrels but there are brand new ones available for the canoe tripping crowd; the standard sizes being 30L and 60L.
No idea why round, even less idea why blue. I think Mem may be on to something. Square is the new round, white is the new blue?

 

[flyingbison]

I'm no engineer, but wouldn't a round barrel provide more structural strength than a square barrel of the same material?

 

[Bothwell Voyageur]

Last square barrel I tried looked great but I found it wouldn't fit in the canoe, too tall. Can't remember if wouldn't fit cross ways or wouldn't fit length ways because of the location of the thwarts, maybe both, but it didn't fit so I took it back

 

[memaquay]

The square barrels do indeed feel slightly flimsier than the round ones. However, when I attempted to buy 20 round barrels from Wilderness Supply in Thunder Bay, they told me the barrels would be $109 each! That's just for the barrels, no harnesses. I sourced these ones from their competitors. I find in the Nova Craft prospector, I have to move the rear thwart back a few inches to fit two round barrels in. I tried the square ones, two will fit in sideways.