I'm buying exactly this much of it. If steel is difficult to make in large quantities you combine it with something more readily available. Quite common for even late 19th C. plane irons to be a laminate of steel and soft iron--the iron for the body, the steel for the edge keeping. Also, there are dozens of traditional constuction techniques that rely on the repetitive iteration of weaving, lacing, cross-battening. Planked boats and stick-built houses, baskets, wattle fences, cane weaving, crochet, macrame, all follow this model. You may be able to spill bore a barrel but it's easier if there's already a piercing from the mandrel it's struck on. Big machine tools indulge the modern urge to hog everything out of the solid. Surface appearance is probably incidental initially but is made into a "trademark" art. Wow, look at what we get when we twist it this way with this many elements. I imagine the barrel makers understood hoop strength and how to attain it. If their product had a distinctive look that tied it to their manufactory, so much the better.
jack
