A great waiter's corkscrew is key to opening any bottle of wine, beer, or other capped drink. With that comes the task of having a tool to do so comfortably. Unfortunately, the basic tool many of us come across does not live up to that challenge.

The particularly troubling parts of using this conventional corkscrew are the relatively sharp edges, as well as the metallic cuboid that creep into one's hand, and the overall unstable able awkward handle.

Having identified these issues, I decided to improve the handle of the conventional corkscrew in my next DIY Design & Fabrication project.

In this project, the goal was to redesign a grip of an existing item and fabricate it with clay. The areas I focused on are the ergonomics, size, and futuristic design of such grip.

In arriving at my final design, I drew inspiration from various ergonomic grips of tools such as arthroscopic cutters, guns, and bikes.

I found that cutouts for the fingers are particularly comfortable and allow to hold items in a very natural way.

Moreover, I also explored how the corkscrew can be integrated into my redesigned grip and quickly concluded that inserting the original item through its top part is the most natural way to unite the two.

In terms of the design itself, I was inspired by the movies Tron and Men in Black.

Having a few initial concepts in mind and on paper, I used Solidworks to formalize my design, see what constraints in terms of dimensions I will need to consider, and then create prototypes of my design.

Explicitly defining shapes and curves in 3D based on sketches is uneasy, but since I was at the stage of creating my design, I only took inspiration from these sketches and arrived at the design in the top picture, which I then assembled with the corkscrew itself.

I then used the CAD model to 3D print a prototype of my design out of PLA to see whether it feels the way it is supposed to.

Although it was not quite perfect, the overall shape felt right, and I put the model into Slicer to then laser cut a wooden structure for my clay model.

After evaluating the 3D printed prototype, I concluded that the edges were not pleasant in touch, the model felt a bit too small, and the grip did not offer a stable grasp.

Prompted by these findings and a complete concept of what I wanted my design to be, I arrived at a final design and sketched it on paper.

In terms of the improvements as compared to the CAD model, I decided to create smooth surfaces in-between the spaces for fingers, I enlarged the item, and I also added dimples in the areas for the fingers to allow to hold the handle more steadily.

I complimented the final sketches with a perspective marker rendering of the grip itself.

In order to go about the fabrication smartly, I used the aforementioned wooden structure before beginning the work with clay.

Working with clay for the first time, I found it interesting how simple it is to form with this material. The initial stages of the work were trying to get the overall shape of my design. This part of the process was relatively easy.

I then went on to define the shape of the grip. The handle felt good in my hand, and I also received positive feedback from my peers.

It turned out that the detailing posed the biggest challenge. This task required a significant degree of precision - making sure to preserve the surface and its smoothness, while getting the exact shape in.

The waiter's corkscrew grip I created feels very comfortable in hand in every configuration it can be held. When opening a bottle of wine or a beer, it offers excellent grip and feel, while at the same time, the force from the handle spreads across a larger area.

I was able to reproduce the design I sketched, and the product fulfills my expectations:

- Issues related to the original product are solved

- The objectives of ergonomics and usability are reached

- The design is satisfying to look at

In terms of any self-reflections, the grip size does not quite match the corkscrew's size itself, but it seems that this is expected considering the size of human hands and ergonomics.