For The Love Of Port

At a time when I should be doing other things, I find myself preoccupied with a technical challenge:

Getting old port corks out of their bottles in one piece

After studying a wide variety of conventional corkscrews, I'm increasingly convinced that a spiral of metal is never going to be a reliable system.

Freezing has potential as an aide, but the tendency of bottle necks to widen as they go down makes this an imperfect system.

While gas injection carries the risk of bottle failure, and, as I recently discovered, spectacular cork failure, I am beginning to see this as the solution.

My plan is to place the bottle in a specially made pressure vessel that only has the top of the neck protruding (through an O ring seal), so that the body of the bottle can be kept at the same pressure as the injected gas.

This makes it possible to exert considerable gas pressure on the cork without risking bottle failure.

A mechanical jig can then control the rise of the cork, with pairs of semicircular clamps progressively gripping the cork as it emerges, assisting the extraction and reducing the amount of gas pressure needed, until the cork is finally extracted with very little gas pressure behind it, and the cork in one piece.

In theory, perfect.

An absurd project? Certainly

Should I get out more? Probably

Will I build it? Quite possibly!

Tom

As much as I love forward progress, nothing beats a centuries old tool... PORT TONGS. No need to say more

..but not much good for re-corking!

Tom

I just let Roy open 'em.

Yeah, but Roy like to blow bottles up

Port tongs, plus a decanter with a stopper? Tongs have the extra merit that the cork is extracted intct, and can be inspected to check that it agrees with whatever the auctioneer claimed was shown by the cellar records.

But I like the idea of the pressurised inside and outside. Could the needle be spiral, so that the cork can be simultaneous pulled, albeit gently?

I've thought about this. Forming a hypodermic into a corkscrew is probably feasible, although it effectively removes the option of using disposables.

Any amount of drag is likely to result in some decayed cork remaining in the bottle, so at this point I prefer a fully pushed arrangement to a push/pull.

- But I'm leaving the option open in case 'plan A' proves problematic!

Tom

An alternative would be to separate the spiral and the needle.
1. 'Open' spiral corkscrew (examples of closed and open);
2. Down the centre of the open spiral goes the hypodermic.
Simplifies manufacture.

- Something else I chewed over - but think through the mechanics and it gets a bit complex!

I can't see any particular benefit from incorporating a spiral into the design - I have an idea for pinning the cork obliquely, on either side of the needle - to prevent a loose cork descending into the bottle - however this would not be possible if a spiral was also present.

Tom