Alibaba Cheap stelvin screw capper

[downunder]

I am located in South Australia and actually bought 2 stelvin cappers from China.
Do they work.Yes they do. Are there any strings attached.Yes there are.
Only buy from an Aliexpress dealer. At least you have a guarantee you will receive a working model. Never ever let the Chinese seller talk you into paying them for CIF transport. If you do when you go to pick the item up you will find an extra transport charge of a few $100. As the docks only allow you 2 days to pick the item up before they start charging you $100 a day storage fee you just have to pay up and try (without success to get a refund on shipping). Use an Australian shipping agent like Smith Chandler to handle all the details.
The manual supplied is in Chinalese so can be a bit of a struggle to work out. But when set up correctly for the bottle it gives a bottle that looks a lot more professional than Nova Twist and at a cheaper price
Once suggestion I would make is to buy a complete spare head (only cost about an extra $50) then if you get breakdowns in the middle of a big bottling run you have a spare head you can pop on right away.
If you need any more info just PM me

 

[Zoe]

For anyone playing along at home, I ended up purchasing an "Easy Capper" machine, made in Italy and imported into Australia by Constante Imports. (http://www.costanteimports.com.au/w...s-and-screw-capping-machines/easy-capper.html).

We've used it for three bottling runs, all up about 1200 bottles and it seems to work just fine. Easy to operate and a bit quicker than hand applying Novatwists.

I'm not sure if its user error or the fact its on a slightly wobbly table but I think around one in 30 caps go a little awry when screwing on. But it's easy to tell when it's not right, snip off the stelvin and re-do it with no harm done.

 

[codeman]

Zoe how much did the machine cost, did that price include shipping?

 

[glennat]

But I think the point is really that there are quite a few way cheaper cappers out there (not just Alibaba and maybe twice that price), and do any of them work for Stelvin caps? There is just no information on how they work or which parts do what. One of them does state that it is NOT compatible with Stelvin caps. No explanation for why, but it looks much the same as many of the others. Amazon has some for $600, free shipping in 2-3 days. This could solve a lot of problems for lots of people, but no one seems to know if they work!