My daughter (11)  and I made this cork screw from a RR spike we found one day while out walking. It is a preliminary design; forming the worm was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

 

 

 

 

Really nice work, bravo!

Start them when they are young.  Nice work.

How well does it work?

I like the design.

Neat, a gift for someone special? Grandparents love that sort of gift

Never seen that before, nice job

Nice practical form, well done.

I had problems with my first one. It did not work too well because the helix was not regular and it tended to jam in and tear at the cork. I found the best way to achieve the even spacing was to roll it round tight together, so all the turns were touching, and then open it up by tapping it on to the hardie / hot set. Holding it at the angle of the spiral and rotating it as I tapped.

Alan

I was thinking if I do one it may work to wrap it around a suitable lag screw for wood, or turn a grooved mandrel on the lathe.

 

Edited May 3, 201511 yr by BIGGUNDOCTOR

I was thinking if I do one it may work to wrap it around a suitable lag screw for wood, or turn a grooved mandrel on the lathe.

 

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Too simple! Where is the fun in that?

Actually maybe not so simple... the immediate problem is removal from the mandrel, as long as you can "unwind" it off that it would be fine. You would need to end up with the handle end of the corkscrew at the head end of the bolt. It is always a problem getting a hot-wound spiral off even a plain mandrel unless you can "uncoil" it to open up and reduce the friction of the tightening effect. 

A secondary problem is that the coach screw (lag screw) thread is a bit too fine for a cork screw. Have a look at and measure your favourite, easy to use one,  you would probably have to open it up to a coarser pitch by tapping it on to the hardie anyway. If you used a plain smooth mandrel it is not too difficult to set the pitch by the angle the wire approaches the axis, especially if you can rotate the mandrel in a lathe or similar.

If I was doing another I would probably make up a pitch-setting former to hold in the vice to use instead of a hardie, from say a 5mm (3/16") flat and put a progressively changing wedge edge on it. Thin and sharp to open up the spiral and soft rounded to set the final pitch.

Back to the fun, it is also not that difficult to get it close enough by eye once you have the rotating-across-the-hardie technique though. There is a certain perverse pleasure in managing to do it all with just a hand hammer and rolling up the initial spiral-formed-tube freehand on the anvil... using the properties of the material to initially form the spiral against itself, using the previous turn as a guide...and then the the opening up of the pitch of the self-regulated spiral without losing the circular form just by the using the easy bending sideways twist of the series of jump rings…if you follow my analogy.

Happy Sunday...

Alan

I've never had any trouble forming them on the anvil without a mandrel. Just make a bend and start rolling it. Your corkscrew looks great, though. Haven't seen one done like that before. :)

Edited May 3, 201511 yr by neg

Really nice design. I like it!

That is an interesting use of a RR spike.

I like what Alan said.  I also like problems I can solve with a hammer, I'm good with a hammer;-)

It's very neat!  If you open the loop up just a touch you would have a bottle opener on that end as well.