Prohibition era bottle capper restoration

[dnslater]

I was ready to upgrade to a bench capper and was less than thrilled on the current models available. They all seem to be mostly plastic with a little stamped steel in places. There are a ton of rusty old cappers on ebay from the 20's that are cast iron and Made in the USA so I thought I would give one of them a shot. As it turns out, they sold tons of these during prohibition to home brewers and they were marketed as "rootbeer cappers". This one was made by Everedy.

Once I purchased it I took it a part and brushed it with a wire brush then gave the body a light aluminum oxide blasting with my cheap harbor freight media blaster. I then primed and painted the body and polished the rest. I recut a rubber pad for the base and glued a small piece of scrap leather inside the cap dome. I then made a handle out of walnut and painted it gloss red to match the base. Works like a champ and should be good for another 90 years.



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[dnslater]

Rest of the photos




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[masteraviator]

Where's the finished product photos? -- oops disregard.

Very Nice!!!

 

[allenH]

Looks awesome, great job!

 

[chefjaypeek]

Looks great, and thanks for the idea, just bid on one. Even if I never use it, it will look great next to my antique meat grinder and cast iron sausage stuffer!

 

[30Bones]

I've wanted clean this one up even though I don't bottle, it would make a good conversation piece. There's no visible name on it. Maybe on the bottom side. I got it years ago in a CL variety buy for next to nothing.

 

[argyle]

Looks awesome, nice restoration. I think I have the same model as the first one in this thread. Mine isn't rusty, but it is very similar. It was my grandfathers and we always called it his root beer capper. I use it and it does a great job.

 

[hitthewall79]

I found a capper at a garage sale. It was solid cast iron, and I paid 25 cents for it. I've since replaced the rusty bolts on it, which were so worn down they no longer had threads, and I can honestly say, it tops any other capper I've ever had.
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