Old School And Homemade Cappers.

[Yeastie Beastie]

Last month here in Charlton, Victoria we had a pretty full on flood but we are back on track now.
The day after it peaked I went to my house (by boat lol) to see how my house looked and what the damage was.
After wading through metre high water in the house I headed for my back laundry where all my beer and gear was stored to see what the damage was. Of the four dozen bottles of my homebrew, some 2 years old, I had 6 bottles left. It seems the floated around the laundry, bounced off everything, and all popped thier lids of broke just below the lid. Good news is my pots and AG gear was safe and sound.

Anyhow, an old mate of mine from around the corner rang and told me to come around 'cos he had something for me. Ol Teddy is 68 and been brewing for a majority of his life and wanted to hand down his brewing gear to me.
Also he gave me 5 x 25ltr fermentors, about 6 bloody hydrometres, a box full of airlocks (which I wont use 'cos I cling wrap), taps and an assortment of other handy equipment. He even had an old clothes dryer he converted to a fermenting cupboard and bottle conditioner.

I wanted to share a pic of these three bottle cappers he gave me. The two on the right are homemade but I am unsure about the one on the left, and so is 'ol Teddy. Has anyone seen one like the one on the left?

 

[Tony]

Awsome score!

I love old home made bottle cappers. There are so many different variations of basicly the same theme.

I was given these a lot of years ago by work mates who used to brew but no longer did. The black one is the one i use most. It does a great job. It was all rusted up and seized when i got it but i stripped it back, painted it, put SS bolts and washers in it and have used it ever since.

I usually sit a bit of rubber or wood over the base.

As for your LHS capper....... it looks home made too but who knows?

here are mine

 

[Rodolphe01]

This is my capper, it was given to me about a year ago, no idea where it is from, the make or how old. It looks pretty homemade, but the cast aluminium suggests it was commercially made. It works just fine

About 10 years ago I had one just like the black one you pictured Tony, but without the spring. A mate had lent to me, his dad had made it in the 70s or 80s when he was a homebrewer.

 

[Bizier]

My ol' boy has one that looks like your one Rudi.

I really like the look of your one Tony. I like that super simple method of keeping the damn thing parallel (even though it moves in and out slightly) without using a cam or similar methods. My ol' boy's one is pretty grippy and inefficient, though I am sure some graphite would totally sort it out.

Sorry to hear about your house YB, hope you are back and brewing soon.

 

[alien13]

Here is the one I used to bottle my first brew (which was only a couple weeks back), may not be as stable as a brand new one, but it was free! My dad had it sitting in the shed, and he got it from his dad, so its been around for a while. Home made, works good, just needs a new base as you'll see from the pics.

Below you'll also notice the special height adjusting blocks that were used to bottle in commercial stubbies heh.


And here is how it all works


Once it gets a new base it should be as good as a brand new one. At least for what I'll be doing with it anyway!

-Nathan

 

[seifer]

I used a drill press till I bought a proper one off ebay, worked pretty well

 

[RobW]

This is my capper, it was given to me about a year ago, no idea where it is from, the make or how old. It looks pretty homemade, but the cast aluminium suggests it was commercially made. It works just fine

About 10 years ago I had one just like the black one you pictured Tony, but without the spring. A mate had lent to me, his dad had made it in the 70s or 80s when he was a homebrewer.

I had one like that Rudi - really rough aluminium casting. It came from KMart in the 80s. Cost about$10 if I recall correctly.

 

[Yeastie Beastie]

Found out today the one on the right was built by a bloke in Wedderburn VIC, only 30 mins away from here. He had one arm and made awesome beer apparently. The handle is nice and long so he could tuck it under his stump...

How I found out was I did an AG brew with an old chap here last weekend and he saw it and told me some great old stories of the two of them. He once helped the one armed bloke bottle and cap his brew with him. His job was to write the dates on the lid....no dates were written just 'Les is a cu*t', 'F you Les' etc etc etc.......9 months later he got a phone call and they shared the laugh.

 

[Pennywise]

^ Awesome story, and a good laugh :lol: . I think there's an old bottle capper round here at work, I'll see if I can find it & put up a pic

 

[hqhz2002]

This capper is made from an old door closer. It has a rack and pinion mechanism inside which makes it very easy to use one handed. It does not need to be bolted down.

 

[Howlingdog]

I had one like that Rudi - really rough aluminium casting. It came from KMart in the 80s. Cost about$10 if I recall correctly.

I still use one of those. Purchased 3 June 1979 cost $14.50 from Maroochydore Home Brew.

 

[DU99]

New with old..friend gave me the old one,year's ago..mr's nearly thru it out..got the new six month's ago secondhand