One of the most popular items I currently make are bottle openers made from scrap steel
diamond plate (also known as check-plate or treadplate). These are fairly popular because of the material and, modesty aside, they work well and are a conversation starter. After making several of these I got the idea that I’d like to try to make a corkscrew.
So I started messing around with some scrap square stock and came up with a design I like wherein I heat and twist the bar in a couple directions then use a grinder to sand of the edges into a square again. This gives it a very neat pattern while providing a texture that's comfortable and easy to grip. Next was the screw. This turned out to be a little more tricky. The first one I made ended up being too big to fit in the cork or even the neck of the bottle so I used thinner stock. The thinner stock heated up and cooled really fast and getting a tight uniform coil was quite a challenge. I decided to make a jig. I found some round stock that matched the inner diameter I was looking for, cut a slot in the top to hold the tip of the round stock, heated my piece and wrapped it around the jig a few times. Once it cooled a bit, I tapped it off the jig and began trying to tweak the coil and tip into proper shape. This became quite frustrating as heating it in the forge meant that the whole coil was heating up and as I was moving the part I wanted to adjust, the whole thing was moving around and I seemed to just be making things worse so I stopped for the day to do some research.
A few days later I was working on a truck at work and needed to heat up a bolt shank that had frozen in place and broken off but it was in a location where I couldn’t use an oxy/acetylene torch set. I went and got the shops little
Berz-o-matic bottle torch to heat it up. As I was heating up the shank I realized that this might do the trick for getting the corkscrew adjusted. I went and bought my own bottle torch, wrapped a new coil and then, using the bottle torch, i was able to heat exactly what I wanted to move. Within a few minutes I had a coil that I was confident would thread into and pull out a cork.
Then came the matter of attaching the coil to the handle in a secure but aesthetic way. I opted for drilling a hole, threading the coil shank through the handle and welding it on the top and bottom. I then used a sanding disk to clean off the top weld leaving a smooth finish. This worked out very well. After spraying some clear-coat on it I suddenly had a corkscrew!
Neat….now what?
I decided to give it to a friend of mine for her birthday. I got a wood box and a wooden “N” ( her first initial) and made a display box for the corkscrew and one of my bottle openers and gave it to her. She was thrilled and I was pleased this little experiment had gone well.
Sometime later, I decided to make another one to see if I could sell it. I made one up and took it on a group camping trip to Illinois in October and a friend of mine bought it immediately. It got posted on Facebook and after a while I had seven orders for these sets! WOW! So I've been working on those fairly steadily. People wanted them to give as Christmas presents so I had a deadline to meet. I got them all finished and have all but one set delivered as of this posting.
In addition to the beverage sets, I've been experimenting with other designs and essentially “doodling” with some scrap and have come up with a bottle opener with a twisted handle that I quite like. I've made some “S” hooks and a prototype twisted double hook which looks pretty rough but is still functional.
Outside of the forge itself, I've been brainstorming with my Jessie regarding branding, packaging and forge swag. The ideas are flowing and I think some neat things will be coming out in the new year!All in all, the activities around the anvil recently have been very productive and rewarding. I'm looking forward to seeing what else emerges from that fire.
I wish for all of you the happiest of holidays!
Sincerely,
Chris
