I've built a simple and inexpensive but effective wine filling rack from common Home Depot materials and thought I might share it with the group in case others are interested. I'm sure there are many other better ways to skin this cat but this is just an option. Hopefully the picture attachments will make it through or this procedure will not make much sense:
Raw Materials:
8' PVC pipe (use 3" or 4" diameter depending on bottle size) 2 90 degree PVC elbows 2 PVC closet rings (I think these are used to mount toilets to subfloors) 1 small can PVC cleaner 1 small can PVC glue 2 pieces of 1.5' long scrap woodTools: hacksaw string
2.5" or 3" diameter hole saw or drill (depends on your bottle diameter) pilot drill or nail tape measureRaw Materials Cost = $20 (approximately) Time To Build = 2 hours
- Cut PVC pipe to approximately 6' length
- Cut a small slot into each end of pipe (across diameter through pipe centerline). Try to keep slots coplanar across pipe length
- Wrap string around pipe length and pull taught using slots to hold and guide string.
- Using string as a guide, start 6" from end of pipe and mark a tick every 4 inches until 12 ticks have been marked on both sides of pipe length. If done correctly, you should have 12 sets of ticks (on opposite sides of pipe) exactly 180 degrees from one another.
- Use a nail or pilot drill to make a small hole or indentation through each tick mark.
- Use hole saw or drill or cut 2.5" or 3" holes through each pilot hole (depending on your bottle diamter. When finished, your wine bottle should slide freely but not rotate very much through each hole set in pipe.
- Permanently mount closet rings to scrap wood support bases (2) using nails or wood screws.
- Permanently mount 90 degree elbows(2) to each end of PVC pipe using PVC cleaner and PVC glue. Try to keep elbows parallel to each other and perpendicular to hole sets in PVC pipe.
- Slide PVC / elbow assembly onto support bases and secure with a single removable screw (1 screw on each side of pipe through elbow shoulder into PVC pipe) to keep pipe / elbow assembly from rotating while filling and corking wine bottles (if using hand corker).
- Done! See attached pics for visual aids...
I hope this helps to improve someone else's winemaking operation. Please let me know if this works out for others. I can be reached via email at snipped-for-privacy@charter.net. Just remove the "nospam" part of my email address.
Thanks, Charles Erwin Huntsville, AL