Hey everyone. A friend of mine is a great woodworker. We’re looking at collaborating on some bottle openers, to include a wax-cutting element. We’ve gone back and forth with several ideas for sourcing the serrated stainless steel element used to cut the wax on waxed bottles. Anyone had success in this area that might be able to offer suggestions? Thanks so much!
I collect these openers. The opener pictured is upside down. The shorter nub pushes through the wax and then lifts the cap, ripping the remaining wax. Takes some muscle, but works fine. These can be found on Ebay all the time.
Appreciate it, though we’re building them and looking for a specific serrated element to rotate around the top of the wax while holding the body of the opener.
It sounds like you may have your mind made up, but my two cents...never liked getting something sharp to cut wax. Especially after maybe having a few, and the bottle gets a little slippery from condensation. At least not something without a guard. I've never cut myself, but it always seems a little risky. My current favorite for thick waxed bottles is a Surly opener someone sent me (no idea who at this point, if anybody wants to take credit). It has a tapered, but not sharp, projection on the end of it that works great for safely cutting through even thick wax. Like the Eclipse beers - PITA to open until I discovered that feature. I honestly don't know if that's what the "nub" is supposed to be used for. But it seems to work great. If you want a picture of it, I'll try to post one. I'd like to see what your openers end up looking like, regardless. Cheers!
It sounds like you are just looking for a source for a blade to incorporate into an opener that you have already designed? It seems to me that your choices are to find some existing device (and the purpose of your post) that already uses what you need, and then backtrack to the supplier for that blade (possibly the blade in the little hand-held pencil sharpener would work). Or if you can't source it that way, sourcing it as a new product for a metalworker, which is likely to be too expensive for your small device, so you may need to manufacture them yourself. (Expensive start-up costs.) Good luck. (And file a patent if you haven't done so already.)
If you're looking to make a wax cutting element that is more useful than the ones on wine keys, what about embedding the serrated blade into a semi circle of.wood that fits around the neck of a bottle so you could safely press the blade into the wax.and just spin the bottle or opener around one time? Also, for cheap and accessible blades you could just use jigsaw blades. Lots of serration options available that way too
You pretty much described a few of the designs that are already being sold. I've been meaning to order a Yopener for a few months now, but I keep forgetting. There's another guy that makes a Rolls Royce version of the Yopener design, but as far as I can tell they only get razzled. When dealing with waxed bottles I usually just soften a spot on the wax seal enough to use a standard opener to rip the rest of the wax off. I'm always a fan of new toys though.
Is there a need for this, there are tons of options on the market now, not sure this wheel needs fixing. Good luck if you find a better approach.
See this post from @Highbrow in an old discussion about wax bottle openers. https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/waxed-bottle-openers.542697/#post-5697975 I would recommend recreating something like the kitchen shear cutter (I copied the photo from @Highbrow's post below), but with sturdier wood, a sharper inset blade, and longer handle for more leverage. This system is also safer because there's no "open" blade that could slip and accidentally cut you, which is the biggest danger/annoyance of waxed bottles. Also if I search for waxed bottle openers I don't see anything like this that clamps around the bottle and cuts with an internal blade.
Trying to build some custom stuff. If I wanted to buy one on the market, would probably post that. Looking for some hardware advice.
I have always been able to pull the cork straight through the wax with a Pulltaps corkscrew. These were originally designed for longer corked Bordeaux bottlings. Its easy to clean up from there. Really old wax can be hard as a rock, but this still worked for me.
That works great for corked and waxed bottles, but not capped and waxed bottles, which is typical for waxed beers.
Hmmm, looks like I’m the only one here still running a pairing knife into his pain. And cussing how much a pain in the ass that wax is.
True for sure. All of the stupid waxed bottles I ever sold were corked. Putting wax on a capped bottle is a bit silly in my opinion. Let's just say I don't like any waxed bottle. I guess it makes it look 'spensive.......
