Vintage bench capper?

[Chrysee]

We bought this bench capper

at an antique store, not because we intended to use it necessarily, but we do like old things (for example, we have plenty of old wooden ships wheels or microscopes that we pick up at antique malls to use as bookends, etc). Typically we use the red wing capper every new home brewer seems to have. But could we use this bench capper? The wing capper is plastic and my husband says he can tell it will just snap and break one day.

So we got some spare bottles and caps for comparison

The bottle on the left was with the bench capper, the right with the wing capper. The wing capper really crimps in the edges, while the bench capper results in a cap that appears to still flare out slightly at the edges. Both appeared water-tight but I'm not sure of a good way to test the seal.

Here is a close up of the bench capper

It looks the same as other bench cappers I have seen, but the difference in how the caps look once applied has me concerned. For those of you who use a bench capper, does this appear to produce the same results? I'll be perfectly happy if this needs to remain another random antique in my house rather than something I can use when brewing

My apologies for the image sizes, I'm doing this completely from mobile devices.

 

[wyzazz]

Should work just fine provided the caps are on tight. Try capping a beer or three from your next batch and mark them. As long as they are still carb'd up when you go to drink them you're golden!

 

[jblizz]

Just open a beer and put a new cap on and shake it a little and see if it holds pressure...

 

[ajwillys]

Just open a beer and put a new cap on and shake it a little and see if it holds pressure...

The pressure increases as the beer warms up. Replace a cap, set it in the sun for an hour, then shake it up! Just don't drink it after all that abuse