Cooper's Ducks

Posted by Victoria S Dennis March 10, 2010 at 22:42In reply to Cooper's Ducks posted by Warren William Hodson on March 10, 2010 at 09:37:

I was looking up the phrase 'Cooper's Ducks' but an explanation wasn't given. I thought a 'Cooper's Duck' was the tool a barrel maker used to knock down the band that held the lathes together.

The Oxford English Dictionary does not record "duck" ("cooper's" or otherwise) ever having been used to mean any kind of tool. And I've looked at several sites describing traditional cooper's tools, and none of them mentions any tool called a "duck". What does "cooper's duck" mean to you anyway? How have you heard it used? It's new to me. (VSD)