champagne corker retractable arm

Does anyone have a manual for the Italian Champagne Floor Corker?
I bought the champagne corker with the oversize iris and retractable arm, but had a terrible experience.

I used real punted champagne bottles and real champagne corks, but had a devil of a time getting the corks in properly. I had such a bad time that I'll have to redo the entire project.

I read on a post that you are supposed to move the retractable arm down when using champagne bottles, however the advice came from someone who admittedly doesn't have the same corker. And it didn't seem to do the trick for me when I tried it.
I had a bad time leaving the arm in its default position against the jaws, and when I tried it pulled down, either way sucked.

The bottles, champagne corks, and corker were all from my lhbs, but the corks seem too big. They fit in the corker no problem there. I just couldn't get any cork in deep enough for a cage to fit over it, and even broke a bottle trying. The ram rod is dialled in to the correct depth, but it felt like I was going to break the bottles each time I used it, and in fact, like I said, as I was still not getting it in far enough, and when I put more force on the lever I ended up breaking one.

Big Saison mess, and disappointment. At least some of my batch is still in the keg which I used as a bottling bucket, but since it already has the priming sugar mixed in I'm going to leave it.

I dont mind chalking it up as a learning experience as long as I can figure this out!

I checked the timing of the machine to and verify that the base locks up correctly that the bottle sits on just after the cork is compressed as the ram rod is penetrating the iris. It seems like it is set correctly...penetrating nice....:rockin:

Any ideas?

Use Belgian beer corks. They make life easy and at the carbonation level of most beers there's no need for the huge champagne corks.

I have not actually shoved a champagne cork into a champagne bottle using my champagne corker. I will give it a shot on my next batch of saison. I have used champagne corks but only in 3L and large bottles. The catch there is that I have to compress the cork and place it in the large format bottles by hand rather quickly.

Thanks smokinghole!

I'll give Belgian corks a try.

If you are up for posting a follow-up, I would like to hear how it goes when you try using a champagne cork.

How far should the Belgian cork go into Belgian style bottles? Will the corks expand up a bit from pressure?

Cheers,