Brian's Horizontal Stirling Engine

OK here goes!

I would love to build a steam engine, but no money, time or facilities has made that highly improbable.

A couple of years ago I came across a couple of videos on youtube which I thought were steam engines but subsequently turned out to be Hot Air Engines. A bit of research and I was hooked.

Cheap, no expensive tools required, no high pressure steam - with many examples being made out of recycled paint cans and the like and can be made on the kitchen table.

When I started out I did not have any stainless steel paint cans, but I did have a few feet of 2.1/2" copper pipe.

Stirling engines have a sealed cylinder, one end of which is heated, the other end is cooled. I chose to build my cylinder in copper but with a thermal break between them to prevent the heat transferring quickly from one end to the other.

To join the two ends of the cylinder together I used a clamped / flange connection that I developed for a previous project.

The former for making the flanges I made in a hotel bedroom in Abu Dhabi cut from a nylon chopping board using an electric drill, coping saw and a file. No work bench just a glass topped coffee table. It was done to pass the time away on a boring contract.

Edited By Brian Rutter on 24/06/2020 15:05:09

The thermal joint flanges are out of 3mm Aluminium Sheet

The thermal break is nothing more than a couple of layers of HDF laminate flooring.

Up until this point everything came out of the "really useful box of stuff" the exeption being the 2.1\2" end cap on the hot end.

Everything here is soft soldered apart from the end cap which is fixed with Gun Gum exhaust repair paste.

When Mum is not looking, cut about 20mm off the bottom of her steradent tube.

This will be a nice fit into aa piece of 28mm copper pipe.

Fill the tube with two part epoxy glue, forming a recess for the connection to the con-rod.

The piston should be a good fit in the cylinder, if you close the outlet from the cylinder with your hand the piston should not move. When you open the outlet of the cylinder the piston should slowly slide down the cylinder under its own weieght.

Brilliant

David

Of course I would like to build a steel flywheel but I can't. So I had to make do with a wooden one.

For reference it is a 200mm (8" diameter wheel made from HDF laminate flooring with 3mm of lead on the outside of the rim.

THe wheel runs on two 8mm bearings from fidgit spinner and the conrod is 4mm diameter bamboo.

Wow, that is fantastic.

Can't wait to see it run!

ro

It was at this point I had to chose either water cooled or air cooled.

Mistake Number 1

I went for the air cooled variety.

Mistake Number 2

Circumferential fins are very wasteful of materials so I chose longitudinal fins that I could cut from scraps of copper pipe.

Trying to solder these fins on was a bit of a nightmare way beyond my skill sets. The first few were OK but with the later ones, every one I tried to solder the previous few desoldered and fell off.

It took forever and turned out to be the worst soldering I have done for a long time.

Up until this point I was intending to have a nice shiny copper engine, the gronky soldering made change my mind to a painted model.

Due to the coronovirus lock down, I was limited to materials in my shed.

The displacer conrod is 1/8" brass. This is fine for vertical enginess but in the horizontal configuration it is not too clever.

I added a slider to limit the vertical movement

Edited By Brian Rutter on 26/06/2020 09:27:54

Edited By Brian Rutter on 26/06/2020 09:28:41

Then added a firebox

Edited By Brian Rutter on 26/06/2020 09:12:56

Edited By Brian Rutter on 26/06/2020 10:38:37

Excellent!

Rod

An amazing project, Brian

... reminded me [in the best possible way] of those ‘escape from Colditz’ stories.

MichaelG.

Excellent job. Posts like this where people get on and do something with no drawings and limited facilities I really enjoy. A bit of determination and inginuity goes a long way. Love it.

Paul.