I'm making a barrel cake with sugar beer bottles and ice on top. I'm making the barrel out of two, 4" tiers.... 9" round. Of course I need to support the bottom tier. Here's the dilemma...I'm covering the barrel with wood panels made of fondant. I see all kinds of pics of barrel cakes that look like they are at least 7"-8" high with one continuous wood panel from top to bottom. How do they get the top tier off the bottom when it's time to cut the cake?

The only thing I can think of is to cut my wood (fondant) panels in half where to two tiers come together and then put a band around the cake at that spot. Then when it's time to cut the cake they can just remove the band and the top tier will be easy to remove. I just don't see any other way...other than peeling off all the fondant wood panels before cutting.

Any other suggestions? Hopefully I'm making sense here

You will find a lot of barrel cakes online. Din't search for beer barrel cakes because those are usually short tub like barrels. But "barrel cake" will show you a lot more. One example below.
And yes, I would cut my fiondant in 2 even though the seam would be hidden by a metal looking strapping around the barrel
But you'rer cake is more of a square
9 wide, 8+ tall

Thank you Lynne3. Yes I found lots of pictures of barrels. And I've seen several that looked pretty tall without a band around the middle. So I just wondered how the heck they separated the tiers when it came time to cut the cake. Maybe they just didn't worry about that part when they assembled the cake...

The cake picture I posted is not seperate "wood" panels. They are grooves embossed into a fondant covered cake. You could easily make your 2 fondant covered tiers and run the embossing up both seperate cake layers. Then run your metal strip to cover the plate in the center. If you want "wood strips, I think that would look great also with a strip to disguise the layer seperation.

It's good that you are thinking about how the cake will be served. I hate when a cake becomes a "hot mess" because it looks great before, and no one thought about the serving part of the event.

I made the wooden (fondant) panels last night. I am assembling the cake tonight so I will go with that plan...cut the panels in half where the tiers come together and hide with a band.

I agree, I think the customer should be able to cut the cake without having to destroy it in the process.

Thanks for the feedback!