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A water butt is a container for collecting and storing water. I've just put a second one in my garden, giving me an extra 190l of storage (no direct collection to this one - it's for when the orginal water butt, fed off the shed roof, is full up).



Wulf

Your pics are good Wulf... helps me get a better understanding. Thanks.

I wish I could have taken a pic of my face when I first saw that though, because I think it would have been cause for a few giggles at your end.

I thought a butt must have been some sort of cut off, or adjustable dam outlet for waterways or something.

Tomorrow I will take a pic of some of our water "butts" and you will probably pull the same face I did... Why does it have that name then? Is it short for something? We call them drums or bins.

Check down the definitions at Dictionary.com and you'll see that one of them is "a large cask". I think that's where the English use of the word for a water storage container comes from.

Wulf

I can certainly remember seeing wooden barrels used as rainwater butts. Apparently a proper 'butt' holds 108 gallons (note, a US gallon is smaller than a UK one; how does an Aus. gallon compare?).

There's an area of town here called The Butts (you'll find it in other English towns, too). It was the place where archery was practiced in the 14th and 15th centuries, when archery practice was compulsory for men of fighting age. The targets were called 'butts'. Someone once told me that this was because the targets were originally barrels, though my dictionary seems to suggest the two words ('butt' for barrel, and 'butt' for target) are unrelated.

And how does the word "buttie" (as in chip buttie) relate to butt?

lol probs cos you get a big butt... if you eat too many chip butties...

I think it may refer to the fact that the chips are between two slices of buttered bread... chip butty. You are making me very hungry now.

Seem to be talking butts a lot these days lol :D

Yes, I seem to remember - drill hole into butt...
Another thing on my to-do-list.

cake tin to bake the leg of a mushroom cake or the engine of a steam engine cake for a childs party.

cat wrote:cake tin to bake the leg of a mushroom cake or the engine of a steam engine cake for a childs party.

I like that idea!!! Birthday's have just past for my two boys... but will hopefully remember this for next year... (perhaps it should be added as a hints and tips in the SSISH cookery book )

I use then in shelters when camping as a heater,(kinda like a mini hobo stove). But please dont light them in tents, only in shelters you have made yourself so you can be sure you have proper ventilation and there is no risk of it catching fire to your make shift shelter.

Target practice. Very satisfying. I could have put this in the slugs thread but I'm not that good a shot...

I use sponge pudding tins for baking small loaves and also for getting pefectly round fried eggs for going in cobs.
Have also used them for cutting pastry for jam tarts.

Not as candle moulds! My wife recently melted down and recast a whole bunch of candles from her collection of leftover wax; we had to use a hacksaw to free the one cast in an old tin can!

Wulf

use large coffee cans to put paraffin in when practising fireplay/doign displays

wulf wrote:Not as candle moulds! My wife recently melted down and recast a whole bunch of candles from her collection of leftover wax; we had to use a hacksaw to free the one cast in an old tin can!

Wulf

i have an idea.......you could let the wax set.....then heat it on the outside ...the candle should then fall out?