My wife bought a flimsy wine opener and it has proved useful in opening corked wine bottles. You may wonder why wineries still use corks and indeed cheaper wines come with spigots or twist off caps. My opinion is that it is a old fashioned warning to oeniphiliacs, or maybe it is really an antiquated process.

My air compressor died. It is a single piston oiled with two reeds, one for breathing in, and one for breathing out. A Craftsman 3 gallon, 125 PSI, 1.5 Horsepower (although 1 HP running). The piston reminds me of a wine cork, and the whole device is made up of child safety caps. I fixed it — it needed a new starting capacitor and a new piston. A couple of hints, here.

Getting a new piston into the cylinder involves compressing three piston rings made of spring steel. These are springs and so need comparable force to compress them. Use plenty of grease — I liberally spread everything with white lithium. The cylinder needed to be mounted to get the piston on, but then it needed to be taken off again to allow for installation of the eccentric onto the motor shaft, and for the piston onto the eccentric.

Putting the retaining screw loosely on the eccentric before mounting makes tightening much easier later on.

The specification for starting capacitor is 200 micro farads. That’s basically it. Don’t worry about the form factor.

Now, Voila, my air compressor is fixed! I inflated my basket ball, and am looking forward to inflating my tires if and when needs be.