Designing the Ripple Opener
Brooklyn, NY 5/25/17
The 'crown cork' has been sealing carbonated beverages for more than a century, and designers have been churning out openers since day one. The requirement is simple — a basic lever and prying edge — which has lead to countless variations.
Cracking open a sealed bottle has always felt like a small, but celebratory, ritual. We wanted to honor that ritual with a tool that quietly reflected the momentary joy of that action.
Similar to the Jack Puzzle, we wanted to work with an existing bar stock — in this case, 5/8" diameter stainless steel bar
— which we found the have the best weight and hand feel.
In our hunt for a domestic manufacturer capable of producing the tight tolerances that our Jack Puzzle required, we were introduced to a machine shop in Wisconsin that specializes in high precision milling and turning. We worked closely with their lead engineer to develop an understanding of their efficiencies and areas of expertise.
We had finalized the manufacturing process and the material, and now we had constraints to work within. After hundreds of sketches, dozens of 3D prints, and a handful of physical prototypes, we landed on our final geometry.
Below at the left you can see the original raw bar stock, and at right is a finished Ripple Opener.
After a long and winding development process, the final result ticked a bunch of important boxes for us: familiar and visually intuitive, substantial and weighty in the hand, employs efficient domestic manufacturing, opens bottles.
We're pleased to be able to share a bit of the design and development process with you, and we look forward to continuing to do so with future product releases. Salut!
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Spring Update
Brooklyn, NY - 4/6/17
The time of hibernation is over, and there's the distinct smell of possibility in the air. We're alive! A couple weeks ago our friends from Bespoke Post came by Craighill HQ to hang out and take a look at the studio. Please enjoy the fruits of their labor. The glamour is real.
Above: We recently welcomed the newest member of the team. His name is Doctor, he's a friendly Scottish terrier mix of some kind, and he is now in charge of the company.
Above: Fearless leader Hunter Craighill hard at work developing a new product.
Above: Intrepid team member Val finishing a Uniform Square Cuff on the belt sander.
Above: Zach and Hunter sip tea, surf the web, imagine themselves on a beach somewhere.
Above: The point of no return.
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Making the Wilson Keyring
Cleveland, OH - 11/22/16
The Wilson Keyring is formed at a factory on the west side of Cleveland. The process starts with 250lb spools of wire and ends with an efficient tool to carry your keys.
Above: Our spool of 1/8" cartridge brass, amongst a sea of steel alloys.
Above: The wire is fed off the spool into this shearing machine, which straightens the wire on rollers before cutting it to length.
Above: Various tooling and forming components sit on a table near a larger CNC forming machine, used to produce other Craighill products.
Above: After a manual de-burring (to round the ends), the wires proceed through 3 custom bending rigs.
All that's left is a little cleanup, a Craighill stamp, and some packaging.
Shop Wilson Keyring