Quick question, My mother in her junk shopping found an antique bench capper. This thing is all steel, rusted and anchient looking. Has anyone used anything this old, is there anything I should look for or inspect on it, can it be used for todays bottles, or is it just a conversation piece now.
Most/many of them can still be used. The one thing I've often seen missing from them is the rubber bumper in the cap part of the capper. If that is missing, you can probably make one from some sort of hard rubber. It might even work without it?
One thing good about bench cappers is they can sometimes work well with the glass screw top bottles. Some seal good some don't so try the style beforehand if you are interested in short storage screw-tops.
Lennybuzz: I still use an old bench capper, but there are some things you should watch out for. I use the bench capper for all my old stubby beer bottles(Canadian,eh?) and it works fine. The actual capping piece is flared slightly and then goes straight up. On the old non-screw top bottles, it pushes the edge of the crown cap straight down for a very tight seal. On srew top bottles, the threads don't allow for the edge to be pushed straight down leaving an "iffy" seal. I took it to work and had one of the machinists shave a few thousandths of an inch out off the inside of the capping piece and now it works okay for non and screw top bottles. If you can get your hands on a micrometer, measure it up and see if it matches the outside diameter of the bottles you're using. Great invention and technology works fine if you adjust it to the new bottles. Uncle tommy
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