Inclined rack and spiral radius pinion corkscrew machine

A corkscrew machine comprising in combination,

• a) a translating driver carrying a helical corkscrew freely rotatable about a corkscrew rotational axis, said driver being fixed to a guide stem configured to be parallel to said corkscrew rotational axis and a gear rack inclined at an angle Φ with respect to said corkscrew rotational axis;
• b) an annular collar having a collar corkscrew axis and a stem receiving passageway configured to receive said guide stem of said driver to maintain substantially coaxial alignment between said corkscrew rotational axis and said collar corkscrew axis as said driver is moved relative to said annular collar;
• c) a pinion gear having a horizontal rotational axis rotatably fixed to said annular collar, said gear having teeth distributed along a spiral radius, said teeth engaging the inclined gear rack of the driver;
• d) a crank fixed to the pinion gear;
• and
• e) a non-rotating collar cam coupled to and translatable on the guide stem of said driver, said collar cam being configured to impart a rotational force to said corkscrew, wherein said rotational force holds said corkscrew without rotation when said collar cam is moved with said driver and said rotational force causes said corkscrew to rotate when said collar cam and said driver are moved relative to one another.

In a corkscrew machine including:

• (i) a translating driver carrying a helical corkscrew freely rotating about its longitudinal rotation axis, and including a guide stem parallel the rotation axis of the corkscrew;
• (ii) a graspable annular collar with a collar axis and having a passageway receiving the guide stem translating with the driver for aligning the rotation axis of the corkscrew coaxially with the collar axis upon translation of the driver relative to the annular collar;
• (iii) a non-rotating collar cam coupled to and translatable on the guide stem of the driver receiving and following the helical corkscrew for imparting torque rotating the corkscrew when held at a rest position within the annular collar responsive to liner translation of the driver toward and away from the annular collar;
• (iv) a biased, releasable collar latch for capturing, holding and releasing the collar cam from the rest position within the annular collar;
• an improvement, comprising in combination therewith:
• a) a gear rack integral with the translating driver, the gear rack being inclined at an angle Φ with respect to the rotational axis of the corkscrew;
• b) a rotatable pinion gear having a spiral radius mechanically coupled to the collar and engaging the inclined gear rack of the driver;
• and
• c) a crank rotating the pinion gear for translating the driver up and down relative to the collar along the rotation axis of the corkscrew;
• whereby, the spiral pinion gear translating the driver up and down relative to the annular collar imparts a mechanical advantage to the crank rotating the pinion gear that is inversely related to the distance between the driver and the annular collar, and
• the collar cam, held at the rest position in the annular collar, imparts torque upon downward insertion translation of the driver relative to the annular collar for screwing the corkscrew into a cork stoppering a bottle, and imparts torque upon upward stripping translation of the driver relative to the annular collar for screwing the corkscrew out of the cork pulled from the bottle.