Anyone else deal with this? It may be time for a new capper. About every case or so it does this. The bell screw ‘walks’ out and gets stuck on the bottle.
Try some teflon tape on the threads to hold the bell more securely. If the tape works pick up a Super Agata bench capper and keep the wing capper just in case it is needed.
I had that happen one time. I screwed it back in and kept right on capping, hasn’t happened since. Capped well over a thousand bottles with the first one I ever bought.
I pop it off with a good tug, screw it back on and cap away. Sure as food turns to shit, it happens about a case later.
You could try Loc-Tight.
Paul
Never had that happen, but had plenty of issues with the “Red capper” that came with my beginner kit. I retired it about 2.5 years in and bought the Super Agata bench capper. This thing is such a beast, and have had absolutely no issues with it after bottling about 10 batches with it. The red capper started having issues after about 10 batches, so fingers crossed.
The only issue I can see having the bench capper, I have a collection of varied size bottles. Will I have to constantly reset the height with each bottle?
I may just go with flip top bottles and never look back.
Colanna capper/corker
This is what I have. Does every size in a split second. Euro and American Crown cap sizes. Also does Belgian corks. I love it! The plastic construction scared me at first. It has bottles well over 200 cases of various sizes with no issues.
The bench capper I have has a stopper on the upper level to regulate how high the apparatus goes upon release. It can be adjusted if you know you are solely doing one size of bottle or you can just let it go all the way up. Little plastic plug type thing stuck into holes in the vertical metal frame. Seems easier than the colona, where the base is adjustable for height. Have not used that one, just looks like a little more work to adjust
It could take a while, and a pile of drinking to collect that many flip tops. I also have a fairly wide variety of bottles, but arrange to only use one size and style per batch. That took a bit of finagling initially, and maybe more management as I’m emptying my reloads, but it saves a headache at bottling time.
The bell comes out of the red capper so it can be replaced with a 29mm bell for champagne-style bottles. If you never plan on capping 29mm caps then you could permanently fix the 26mm bell in the capper with a small amount of JB Weld or similar compound.
I also have a colonna which I love for capping 29mm and corking bottles but it’s a PITA for 12oz bottles to move the base plate frequently. I always use my black wing capper for those.
