Just in time for summer I made a really simple bottle opener. I wanted to incorporate a “cap catcher” of some sort – a bucket – something. I ended up going with magnets. I bought some pretty strong magnets – bordering on dangerously strong. Gotta be careful when handling these guy as you can pinch your skin pretty easily – so maybe not that dangerous as that’s really the worst that can happen as long as you don’t swallow them… The magnets I bought were 1″ in diameter and had a pull force of almost 10 lbs from K & J Magnetics.
My plan was to secure a standard (purchased) bottle opener near the top of a piece of wood attached the wall. The magnets would be on the back side of the board (hidden) and would catch the bottle caps. I certainly did not invent this idea – definitely saw it on the internet somewhere (don’t remember where). I cut the board from a 1 x 6 and nipped the corners of the board off with a miter saw. I embedded the magnets almost 3/4 of the way through the back of the board with a Forstner bit and used a roman ogee router bit all the way around the outside of the board. Stained and poly’ed the board and then tried it out. “Hun, get your phone, film this awesome feat of engineering.”
I guess I should have used stronger magnets or embedded the magnets further…I still use it, you just need to carefully let the caps fall towards the magnets not away from the wall.
