The Steam Engine Powered Corkscrew Story (and Techie Details)

by Wayne Meadows
Probably around 2000 a thought crossed my mind: Vancouver had the first steam engine powered clock
in the world (built by Canadian horologist Raymond Saunders in 1977 for display in Vancouvers historic
Gastown) so why should we not have the first steam powered corkscrew in the world?
However, soon after that time, the Corkscrew Inn construction project consumed all of our thinking
power for about three years.
Later, I started doing research into what
company made the most likely machine
tools - such as lathes and milling machines that one would need to make a steam
powered corkscrew. I settled on Sherline
equipment and had endless searches in on
eBay for Sherline products. After two or
three years I had a very decent miniature
machine shop. Having educated myself by
reading a book and watching a video I
proceeded to become a machinist. I
discovered that practicing to be a machinist
simply means that initially one takes
perfectly good pieces of metal and tooling
and turns them both into scrap. To keep
everything running smoothly, both the
machines and the machinist require a bit of
lubrication occasionally.
While all this was going on, I was still thinking about the corkscrew design that I would eventually build.
The criterion I settled on for the corkscrew was a mechanism that had never been patented as far as I
knew. Assuming that I have a copy of all bar corkscrew patents,
from all the countries in the world, I met this requirement. (We
are talking only about the corkscrew mechanism, as steam
powered engines were patented long ago.) Around 2006 I started
buying the necessary bits and pieces to build a steam engine,
boiler, etc. from an American company, PM Research. Working
on the project only in the winter, I put in a few years of labour.
This was my mock up in 2009 as to how I imagined it might all
come together from a layout point of view. I decided that the
corkscrew would not need more space than a bottle capper, thus
the bottle capper shown in the mock up. The black item under the
engine is a butane burner mechanism from a little stove.

In 2012, construction on the PM Research boiler, steam

engine, my corkscrew and the base and tower to hold it all
was completed and tested. Engine number one did not have
enough power to run the corkscrew, resulting in engine
number two. Engine number two used up far more steam
than boiler number one could produce. Three different
burners and fuel combinations did not resolve the problem
with boiler number one, resulting in boiler number two.
Now, my original wonderfully clever automatic gear
shifting drive shaft, made from Meccano gears, turned out
to be not very reliable, resulting in engine number three.
Not to put too fine a point on it, version number one was a
complete bust. I felt much better however, after I re-named
it an Engineering Prototype and reflected
on what a
vast amount of new knowledge I had
accumulated.

This is an old German steam boiler kit manufactured by Regner. In the 1980s a man in Kansas bought it
new from a hobby store located on Vancouver Island! In 2013 I found it on eBay and restored/modified
it. The boiler has been tested to 120 pounds per square inch (psi). It is 35cm in length and 10cm in
diameter; one would expect a cylinder of these dimensions to hold roughly 2.7 litres of water. However
it only holds .9 L of water as the two flame tubes and fourteen fire tubes take up two thirds of the total
internal volume. This amount of very hot brass tubing in the water results in the boiler being up to 25 psi
pressure in about four minutes. More importantly the boiler can continuously produce the volume of 25

psi steam required to run the engine. At 2,000 rpm the engine sucks up about 40 litres of this steam every
minute.
Water is pumped into the boiler through stop valve A. The steam leaves the steam dome B with a branch
off to the gas regulator C. It travels through the steam tube D which runs through the left flame tube and
exits at E as super heated steam on its way to the engine. There is a direct correlation between steam
pressure and steam temperature; at 25 psi super heated steam is 115.59 C (240.07 F). The amount of
energy used to change boiling water into this super heated steam is roughly the same amount as will be
released when the steam is converted back to water in the steam engine. F is the steam connection to the
steam whistles and G is the water gauge; the gauge is crucial piece of equipment, as one must keep the
water in the boiler above the top of the flame tubes. H is the drain valve and pipe. I is the pressure gauge
and J is the emergency pressure release valve set to go off at 60 psi. The oak lagging has three functions:
looks good, provides boiler insulation and, most
importantly, prevents blisters when one accidentally
touches the 115 C boiler.

Here we see an end view with the flames in action.

Steam pressure gas regulator

From the propane tank, gas flows in at B and out to the two
burners through outlet C. When the corkscrew is not
opening a bottle of wine the motor is in neutral, so the steam
pressure quickly builds up. When the steam pressure at A
exceeds the pre-set amount as determined by the spring and
threaded piston rod settings at D, the internal valve shuts off,
diverting the gas flow through hand valve E. Valve E is
adjusted such that the two propane blow torches (burner
number four) can be turned down to whatever pre-set
amount is desired.

Slobber tank
This tank is initially filled with water to be pumped into the
boiler before firing the boiler up. The spend steam /oil from the
engine is piped into this tank. As the oil floats on top of the
water it also serves as an oil/water separator. The steam-heated
water in the tank is then used to re-fill the boiler as required.

Water pump
To add water to the boiler one must pump water from the slobber
tank into the boiler. This hand pump is capable of producing 100 psi,
easily allowing one to pump water into an operating boiler under
pressure. It can also be motorized and driven by the steam engine in
marine applications.
Engine
This is an English Steward D-10 kit with reversing mechanism and a worm gear power take-off to run a
water pump. Rather than a water pump it now runs a corkscrew. (I recently discovered that Saunders
also used a Steward steam engine in his first clock.) The two-cylinder steam engine is double action,
meaning that the pistons are driven both up and down by steam pressure, resulting in the equivalent of a
four-cylinder engine.
Steam from the boiler
enters at A. The
displacement lubricator
B injects oil into the
steam line lubricating
the engine. Spent steam
exits to the slobber tank
at C. With the engine
operating at 2,000 RPM
the worm gear power
take-off reduces this to
200 RPM at CV
(constant
velocity)
coupling E. Lever D is
used to cause the engine
to run forward or
reverse as required. The
white lagging on the
input steam line acts as
insulation.

Corkscrew
Early on I realized that due to the rotary drive motion from the steam
engine, I really had no option but to base my design around a gear-driven
stem nut. The only other corkscrew using this mechanism is the
ROTARY ECLIPSE, which has a frame about 46cm long, way too
unsightly and ungainly for this project. Shown here is my 2010 mock up
of what I envisioned the end product might look like. Luckily, the springloaded plywood bottle rest did not make the cut. (I used a lot of
Meccano bits and pieces to create prototypes of everything from gear
trains to mechanical structures.) After considerable think time and
experimenting with new versions of the gear-driven stem nut
mechanism, I met my design criterion for a patentable corkscrew and
reduced the total length of the frame, including gear box, to a tidy 19cm.

If I publish the details of the corkscrew mechanism, I will be unable

to patent it if or when I decide to join the ranks of one hit wonder
inventors. So for the time being youll have to trust me that this
Meadows mechanism is unique.

Music module
The three steam whistles have been
tuned such that they play the first four
notes of O Canada. In case you are not
looking, this will notify you that the
cork is now out of the bottle and you
can pour a glass of wine. Steam for the
whistles comes in at A. Water from the
spent steam is drained at B.

Bell
The bell rings to notify you that the cork is about
to be ejected from the corkscrew.

Bottle clamp
The bottle clamp A is held in a neutral position by two
spring-loaded ball bearings B. After the bottle is set on the
bottle holder C, the clamp lever is pulled back until the
mouth of the bottle is in the throat of the corkscrew. At
that point a spring- loaded brass wedge D swings under the
bottle holder, locking it in position. When the cork is out
of the bottle the lever is pushed forward, causing the brass
wedge to swing out from under the bottle holder and
allowing the bottle to drop down and be removed from the
corkscrew.

All of this resulted in the worlds first steam-powered corkscrew

pulling a cork on March 3, 2014 in Vancouver, B.C.

For a video of the steam engine powered corkscrew in action and a

behind the scenes video www.corkscrewinn.com/steam_corkscrew