Lowndsey wrote:Find a used wine barrel and break it up
Thats the go.
Try some local wineries, they often get leaky ones and are happy to get a little cash back.
Careful with half barrel planters from nursries, sometimes they treat them for white ants.
Half a wine barrel will keep you in oak for a long time. If you have the choice of red or white wine barrels, they both have good properties, try and make sure its only been filled with wine. A guy that I used to be able to get them from also used to sell them as planters, bar tables, etc, he used to fill them up with dam water to make them watertight. He used to give me the clean ones.
Sometimes you can get americam or french oak from flooring and timber companies, but often has sapwood.