The Pull-String Champagne Fastening: One Pull Lifts the Wire and Frees the Cork

"When the first piece of twine has been tightly drawn over the cork and secured under the rim or flange on the neck of the bottle, instead of cutting off both ends of the piece close up to the cork the end which is held in the right hand of the operator should be cut so as to be between two and three inches in length." "They are then brought together at the point near the flange of the neck of the bottle, where the wire is twisted, as shown in the accompanying drawings, and are passed under the wire in the manner represented, so as to enable any one, by an upward pull on the ends of the twine, to remove the wire, and by continuing the pull to disengage the twine from the cork."

**Cork.** Pour chilled soda water into a clean beer bottle and press a cork in firmly, leaving its top standing above the lip. **Twine.** Tie a piece of twine tightly over the cork and under the lip, leaving one end 6 cm long. Tie a second piece across the first in the same way, its long end on the opposite side. Cut the other ends short. **Wire.** Twist galvanised wire once round the neck under the lip at the point where the two long ends meet, with the ends passing under it. Carry the wire's twisted ends up over the cork to where the twines cross and twist them firmly together there. **Handle.** Bring the two long ends together below and tie them through a washer as the disc g. Wrap foil over the neck, leaving the washer hanging below it. **Test.** Wearing safety glasses and pointing the bottle away, pull the washer upward: the wire lifts off, then the twine comes free. Time it against cutting a second bottle's twine and wire off with a knife.

**Gustave Bousigues** (called Bley) of Rheims, France, received US 53,090, dated 6 March 1866. He meant it principally for sparkling wines but for any fermented liquid corked with wire and twine; the two twine ends hang on opposite sides, held by the lips the twine presses into the cork, and the disc g of lead or other metal is the handle. His claim is the method of fastening whereby twine and wire are removed by hand without any instrument. **Honest limits.** A beer bottle of re-corked soda water stands in for sparkling wine, and a steel washer for the lead disc, which is not used here. The notebook shares the load evenly between the legs; its pressures, cork and leg counts are examples. Your pull is the result.