Mike asked "With this background does anyone have experience with vibrating
knife
uncappers?"

Last year I purchased Cowen's "Handyman", vibrating knife system and it is
one of the best purchases I ever made.

At the time I explained to Dave Cowen that I had about 250 supers and would
be increasing.  I didn't want to use a chain uncapper and felt my choice was
between the "Handyman" and the Silver Queen.  The Handyman was brand new,
having been developed as part of their new compact setup.

Dave recommended the Handyman, which is several thousand dollars less
expensive than the Silver Queen.  I bit, and it was a wonderful choice.

I choose the hand crank and I uncap about two frames a minute.  That time
includes picking up the frames from a super, placing it in the device, and
turning the handle.  Turing the handle feeds the comb through the vibrating
knives which, in my case, are hot water heated.  (Hot water heating system
also supplied by Cowen.)

After uncapping, the frames are fed onto rails over a Maxant uncapping tank,
that I previously owned.  The uncapping tank holds 23 frames, and my
extractor holds 20 frames.

Since purchasing this, I have twice seen Cowen setups purchased by others
who spend several thousand more to get an automatic feed into the knives.
While they can uncap twice as fast as me, they have nothing useful to do
with their time saved as they have to wait for the extractor to catch up!

In summary, for a pittance (relatively) get the Cowen Handyman uncapper,
with the hot water heating device, and rails to fit over an uncapping tank
at least large enough to fill your extractor once.  You will be pleased.

Lloyd
Lloyd Spear, Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacturers of Ross Rounds Comb
Honey Equipment, Sundance Pollen Traps
and Custom Printer of Sundance Labels.

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