The Gimlet Corkscrew: A Coarse Screw on a Solid Stem With a T Handle

"The greatest advantage obtained by my invention, in the combination with an ordinary gimlet-screw of a handle making it serve thereby as a cork-screw, is strength and cheapness, over those made with a spiral twist of steel wire gradually tapering from the handle to the point." "My invention represented in the drawings consists of the usual gimlet-shaped handle, A, secured to or made to form a part of the screw stem, B, on which is cut a screw, C, terminating in a point, and very similar to what is known as the gimlet screw, but the threads of the screw, instead of being made as close together, and as small as those to be used for wood, they should be made much larger, farther apart and wider, so that they will have a better hold on the cork"

**Stem.** Cut 12 cm of 5 mm mild steel rod and file one end to a gimlet point. **Thread.** Wind 2 mm steel wire tightly round the last 5 cm of the rod, 5 mm between turns, and bring it down to the point. Flux it and silver-solder it to the rod all along with the torch, so the wire becomes a wide, coarse thread on a solid core. File the thread's outer edge smooth. **Handle.** Cut 10 cm of hardwood handle stock, drill it across the middle to fit the rod, push the plain end through, and peen it over a washer as a rivet. **Test.** Cork several bottles of water firmly with the corking kit. Draw half of them with the gimlet corkscrew and half with a wire helix wound as in the grater-handle blueprint, pulling each with the spring scale hooked to the handle. Note the pull, and whether the helix stretched or the cork crumbled.

**M. L. Byrn** of New York, New York, received US 27,615, dated 27 March 1860. He wrote that it would serve both for cutting the wire from bottles that needed wire to keep their corks in, and for drawing the corks; that it would remove a cork from the smallest vial; and that it would draw a bung of hard wood from a barrel or hogshead and serve as a gimlet to make an air-hole. His claim is the gimlet screw and handle combined as a new article of manufacture. **Honest limits.** A wire thread soldered to a rod stands in for a thread cut from the solid, and a riveted hardwood handle for one formed in one piece. The notebook uses the plain spring formula without its curvature correction; its pull and sizes are examples. Your drawn corks are the result.