ThePortForum.com

This all seems terribly involved..

I have two techniques

1) When using a frame corkscrew on a frail bottle, and want to break the adhesion between the cork and the glass, I wind in the corkscrew until it starts to tighten and then wind it back half a turn. I then hit the top with the palm of my hand to jolt the cork down a fraction. After that I pull the cork straight out, as the winding action of the corkscrew tends to twist the cork in half.

2) When pushing in a cork to preserve it for examination, my first tool of choice is the blunt tend of a chopstick. If the top of the cork is very soft and the chopstick is pushing into the cork rather than pushing the cork down, I switch to the handle of a wooden spoon.

A simple purpose engineered solution might be a short 25mm diameter acetal rod, machined down at each end to a slightly different diameter, perhaps 15mm and 17mm, and for a depth of maybe 20mm, aided by a small mallet. The most appropriate end can then be selected for use.

Thinking about Uncle Tom's comments, and the ideas about solid rods, and that post with a picture of a thick but hollow nut....
We need an alternative to the Durand. Instead of an Ah-So that the screw goes down through, we need a tube just slightly smaller than the diameter of the bottle that sticks up, and which we can subsequently press upon.

Approach A:
Step 1 - place the tube.
Step 2 - wind the screw pull down into the cork
Step 3 - push down on the tube without losing the cork into the bottle (its held by the screwpull)
Step 4 - Pull straight up with the screw pull.

Approach B:
Step 1 - wind the screw pull down into the cork
Step 2 - apply two halves of a tube around the screw pull
Step 3 - push down on the tube without losing the cork into the bottle (its held by the screwpull)
Step 4 - Pull straight up with the screw pull.

Tom, btw, the hand screwpull i've been using for a while (a tough extra long gem ~100 yrs old), allows for a straight pull up and I have lost very few old corks when using it. Its much harder to use on young corks, but they hold together better.