The Socket-Bracket Bar Tool: Bottle Opener, Knife, Ice Pick, Grater and Corkscrew in One

"Most bottling establishments now employ the patent hinged wires for holding the cork firmly in place. This wire bail is bent into U form, so as to be swung up on the cork and forced over or partially into it, so as to require considerable force to release the cork by hand that it may be expelled by the carbonic gas confined with the liquid in the bottle." "The operation consists in introducing the projection a on the heel of the knife A into the upper wire fold. The bottle itself forms the lever by which the stiff wire is pressed down from the cork; hence the dished or concave central part D is to receive the head or mouth of the bottle, with the cork and its appliances."

**Bar.** Cut 30 cm of 25 × 5 mm mild steel flat bar. Mark its middle. Heat the middle with the torch and hammer it over a hole in a hardwood block into a shallow dish that the bottle's mouth and cork sit in. At the dish's edge on the knife side, file a short hooked projection that will enter the fold of the bottle's wire. **Knife.** On one arm, file a bevel along one edge and finish it on the sharpening stone for cutting lemons. **Ice pick and grater.** File the other arm to a point. Near its root, cut rows of small raised teeth with the cold chisel, like a rasp, for grating nutmeg. **Corkscrew and bracket.** Wind 2 mm spring steel wire into an open helix round a 6 mm rod and file its end to a point. Drill the dish's centre, pass the straight tail up through it and bend it flat over the dish, and epoxy a nut filed square round the shank below as the collar. Cut a square socket in a hardwood block that the collar fits; screw the block to the counter's edge so the tool stands in it without turning. **Wire-fastened bottle.** Pour chilled soda water into a clean beer bottle, press a tapered cork in, twist a wire ring round the neck and bend a U-shaped bail from galvanised wire, hinged on the ring, that swings up over the cork. **Test.** Wearing safety glasses, rest the mouth in the dish with the projection in the bail's fold and turn the bottle: the wire comes down off the cork. Cut a lemon, grate a nutmeg and chip some ice with the other parts.

**George A. Kiehl and Ernst H. Kohler** of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, filed US 169,175 on 25 August 1875; it is dated 26 October 1875. The tool was of steel or case-hardened malleable iron, the ice pick C was roughened at B like a rasp for grating nutmegs, and the corkscrew E had a square collar e so it would not turn in the socket bracket F. Their claim is the T-shaped implement with its concave centre, projection, knife, ice pick, grater and collared corkscrew. **Honest limits.** Filed mild steel stands in for his steel or case-hardened iron, so the knife dulls quickly, and a hand-wired beer bottle of re-corked soda water stands in for a factory-wired bottle. The notebook ignores friction; its forces and lengths are examples. Your opening is the result.