I decided that I wanted to make a couple of Barrels for my Lady T. I am by no means an expert at such things and do not posess a lathe. I do however have an old lathe attachment for Minicraft drills, so I dug it out and cleaned off the rust. I put it together and 20 minutes later I had two acceptable examples.
Starting off with 12mm dowelling, I marked it off into 12 mm lengths, marked off the steel bands and inserted the piece in the "lathe". I then used a sharp knife to mark the wood all around, before using a small chisel to cut the shape. Now I know that modern lathes will cut to exact depths and give a truly symmetrical shape but as I only have this attachment, I had to use the measure of "eye". By applying the chisel very gently, I only cut a small amount away at a time. When happy, I took the barrels from the lathe and cut them up into two. After applying stain I painted the bands with matt black and hey presto two cheap and reasonable barrels...
P.S. They are actually half barrels as I did not have dowel thick enough...