A Gaggle of Magnetic Bottle Openers

When I saw the openers Mr M's Woodshop made, I knew I’d have to make some for the local gift shop. They sell a variety of my stuff and always are looking for inexpensive gift-type items.

Each picture shows two openers, the woods are:
1. (L) leftover walnut, hickory, maple cutting board illusion cubes on red oak
1. (R) Maple, hickory, lauan, jatoba, BB ply (outside to center).

2. (L) curly white oak veneer w/walnut border.
2. (R) lacewood veneer w/walnut border.

3. (L) quilted maple veneer w/walnut border.
3. (R) curly white oak veneer w/walnut border.

4. (L) Russian olive
4. (R) poplar from my fractal burning practice.

5. (L) poplar from my fractal burning practice.
5. (R) cherry and walnut.

Onto the scrap wood trashcans!
Plenty to choose from. The boards with the curved edges are made just like breadboards, the ends are routed with a template.

The square boards with veneers are walnut framed with poplar underneath. The Lichtenberg pattern boards were leftovers from my practicing earlier (We use every scrap from the tree, including the scraps!)

I used some 20mm (3/4 inch) magnets that have a countersunk hole. My intent was to screw these down and avoid epoxy. Well not to be someone to leave well-enough alone, I decided to “improve” the setup.
I installed a cross bar underneath to complete the magnetic circuit and increase the holding power

It can be seen here under the two discs. Of course that meant that the magnets needed to be installed in opposite orientations (N/S poles flipped).

I kept the magnets level with the rear surface with another metal strip while the epoxy dried

Given the increased holding power, I only installed one magnet for the lower end of the board. During use, the torque pushes this magnet against the wall.

The magnets are close together and centered. This is because many refrigerator doors are curved and magnets mounted further towards the sides might not sit properly on a curved surface.

The “cap catcher” magnets were installed similarly:

These are 20mm x 3 mm magnets.
Cap magnets ideally should be as close as possible to the front surface. For that, I ground the nib off of a cheap Forstner bit. I’d start a pilot hole with an unmodified bit, then switch to the nibless bit and bottom out the hole to within 0.040 of the front face. If I left the nib in place, it would have poked through. The beauty of the veneered boards is I could drill the shallow 3mm deep pocket from the front, then cover it with the veneer.

The openers are Asian imports. I got these domestically, but given that everyone and their dog sells them on Ebay, I know from whence they come 8^) I had also ordered some stainless steel openers.

Disappointment!

I attached one of these cast iron openers to the wall just above my old reference opener I “liberated” back in the 60’s as a kid. Much to my shock, the blowback from the bottle with the new opener was just unacceptable 8^(

The problem is they were designed with a fatal flaw (same issue with the stainless steel variety as well).

Comparing with my gold-standard opener, the problem was obvious. The bottle angle was incorrect.

When the cap first starts to come off, the bottle is still horizontal. A long-neck beer bottle keeps the air space bubble down lower in the next until it is tilted a little bit. With the air bubble down low, there was beer directly up against the cap. When the cap seal first breaks, the CO2 pressure forces that trapped beer out (and all over the place). Obviously who ever designed these doesn’t drink beer! =8^O

Frustrating no doubt, but I could modify them to work (break out the trusty Dremel tool!)

Notice the bottle angel of the unmodified opener.

Now see the angle of the modified opener

(pictures rotated so opener appears as if mounted on a flat wall)

Grinding down the metal ruined the “patina”, so I applied a daub of peroxide/salt solution to rust things up and kill the shine.

Problem solved!

I covered the backs with felt, but upon placing them on my fridge door for a “test drive” (quality assurance program), I noticed that they would slip down every so often while being used. This will not do!

I replaced the felt with that rubberized shelf liner stuff. This is still thin enough to allow for a strong magnetic bond, still protects the refrigerator surface, but has a bit of ‘tack’ so it doesn’t slide so easy. works great!