Marc Patry,
   Assuming that what you are using is, in fact, an electric uncapping
knife:
   I use and like an electric uncapping knife in a small operation.  I made
a foot switch for the knife so that it only is heated when a foot is on the
switch.  When the knife is not uncapping, it is not being heated.  The
knife stays clean.
       The switch is a push/on release/off, square-button, Radio Shack
switch mounted in a hole drilled in the side of an electrical outlet box.
The outlet box is mounted at the end of a board.  A foot placed on the box
activates the switch.  Beside the outlet box is a wooden block foot rest,
also fastened to the board, so that a foot placed on the foot rest
also rests on the outlet box and switch.  The outlet box also has an
outlet in it; the knife plugs into the outlet box in a direction parallel
to the floor.  A three-wire, grounded, power cord from a discarded
refrigerator/washing machine kind of appliance powers the outlet box.  Be
sure to ground the outlet and the outlet box.
Tim Sterrett
Westtown, Pennsylvania, USA
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