Hi Rob,
Don't be embarrassed. You should see some of the messes we've had at our house! And if you read posts here from the last week you can read about some really messy stuff going on!(Go to Wine Concentrate Kits, Great Day in Winemaking) If you're asking about the wand that I think you're asking about it's a thin tube with a dohickey sticking out of the bottom that can wiggle around like a loose tooth. That is the stop/start mechanism. Do you have racking hose? You can play with the tube, wand, water, bucket and bottle to see how it works.Put a bucket of water on your counter or table. Put one end of the hose into the bucket. (You may want to clip it to the bucket at this point.) Get a suction going on the hose, then quickly attach it to the top of the wand. (You may want to have this over a towel on the floor.) The dohickey on the bottom should stop the flow of water out the end. Then you insert the wand into a wine bottle and move it so the dohickey on the bottom of the wand is forced up into the wand tube a way, allowing water to pass through then end of it. When you have enough water in the bottle, simply raise the wand off the bottom of the bottle. You may want to practice this a few times before actually bottling wine.
After you fill a couple hundred bottles this way you will could easily decide enough is enough and get yourself a Buon Vino Automatic Auto Bottle Gravity Filler.
Bert and I were just discussing labels a bit ago. We've been trying a few different things b/c we're tired of scraping labels. We've been printing on regular paper, cutting and gluing them onto bottles with glue sticks. The come off nicely and give us something to do while sitting in the screen porch passing the evenings. We also have tried tape runners that can be found in the scrapbooking section of any craft store. 1 tape square per corner and the label stayed on until I pulled it right off. You can also get labels at any office supply store, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
My goodness, I'm exhausted after all that! I think I should go pull a cork!