So i almost finished it today.

then i realized i had the piston control valve plumbed in the wrong order so it would do one cycle then get suck blowing steam out.

So there’s the piston and flywheel made. 4/5 parts done.

I’ll go back to the hobby shop and grab some more pipes and hopefully get this thing finished by the weekend.

the theory behind my design is solid, it’s just hard as **** to solder in three pipes into one small barrel then clean out the center without ripping the three pipes off or deforming it.

also the boiler is much less cute today. i forgot to fill it properly when testing and half the solder joints on the bottom melted then the boiler turned pink again from heat. looks ugly. oh well.

Post pics of this **** when it’s done.

Preferably in action.

lol tubs is ****ing awesome

i love you Log in to see images!

imo you should make a Steam skin out of your steam engine

Is this going into a mini train or something?

bummoppet, it’s just for fun; no real purpose other than show.

I tried a different valving method today. It had potential but failed. I need to make a proper flywheel.

bummoppet Posted:

If it is an engine, it has to go into something!

It’ll run a flywheel made of hard drive platters. I might drive a small generator off it to run an LED or something.

I’m bugging my sister to use her school’s machine shop to make me a couple parts. If we’re not snowed in of course. Power is actually out right now D:

i love wifi and neighbors. And that my street is on a totally different power grid than the people across the stream thing.

After a week of being snowed in I finally got out to the hobby shop and bought a load of new bits and pieces to finish this thing off.

In addition, instead of just arbitrarily hacking up new tubes with no real dimensions, I dug out autocad (re: downloaded 2009) and started making scale drawings of stuff I need to create.

Autocad kicks bum! It fits my thoughts; I can make a perfect circle or part and move it around until it’s somewhere I like without it changing shape or size. I’ll post the autocad parts when it’s done, too.

The steam valve that’s been giving me problems is still in progress, though. Hopefully the whole thing will be running by the end of the weekend.

It’s cool to see someone tinkering around just for the joy of it. I look forward to seeing pics of the completed project.

Being a boiler you realize, creates a large amount of internal pressure, i hope that thing is very solidly welded or you could get quite hurt. obviously you understand that since you are in fact trying to create a steam engine, so…just watch it.

Not sure what a small boiler like that would get up to for psi, but i suggest a face protector visor at least and a few feet away, when you get it fired up. Safety first always. Not that a visor would stop a chunk of…brbum, it looks like? i sure hope you didnt just take sheet brbum and weld a seam in it to make a tube, i dont think plain welds will hold that pressure, not with the added heat. also those end welds look suspicious…i hope you just exercise caution, thats all.