FATHER AND SON WORKING MODEL STATIONARY STEAM ENGINES

[230RN]

FATHER AND SON STEAM ENGINE MODELS

Late  1970s, when I had my machine shop, I built a couple of steam engines, one of them a double-acting stationary engine made from an MG car brake cylinder and all found parts around the barn / shop.

I turned it over to Son2 ten-fifteen years ago.

Recently he built a steam engine and sent me a video of the exhaust from his engine running my engine.

I'm not sure if there's symbology there or not, but I thought that was WAY COOL !

Terry, 230RN

Pic captured from a video he took of the two engines with mine at the bottom, his at the top;  His pressure line comes in from the top of the pic, his exhaust goes out the left side and comes back up from the bottom to my engine. 

[MechAg94]

Looks cool.  See if you post the video somewhere.  You can post to youtube without making it public. 

[MechAg94]

Is he using plastic tubing at the top?

[230RN]

Yes, throughout.  Running off his shop compressor, maybe 5 PSI or so, I guess.

The steel pipe at the bottom was something I added to adapt mine to plastic tubing, which was cropped out to conform to APS' 127KB size limitations. Mine would run about 70 RPM just from breath pressure.

I built a four cylinder oscillating engine once, which ran OK, but the construction wasn't pretty.  It would self-start from any crank angle, though.  It was a prototype for a better reversible engine which I never built.  The finalized never-built one was intended for an actual steam powered model RC boat I was planning on, but hobby time ÷ clock time was approaching unity.

I also built a Stirling engine which I could not get to run because the working medium (the air up here in Commierado) was so thin.  Let's face it, said I, smiting my forehead, you'd never get any Stirling engine to run if the working medium was a vacuum.  Duh. :)

[MechAg94]

Ok, you said steam so I was wondering about the heat. 

[230RN]

Heh.  AAMOF, at one point I ran an engine off a propane torch tank since my compressor was down.  Well-ventilated area, of course.

My very first engine was a store-boughten oscillating one which included a little boiler and would operate from a candle flame.  Gave it away when we moved to Commierado in a moving frenzy.

Terry, 230RN

REF (For those having interest, WIKI's moving GIF of the oscillating engine operation.  There are two holes in the stationary part, one for inlet, the other for exhaust.):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oscillating_Steam_cylinder_Animation.gif

[ConstitutionCowboy]

"Joe Pie" on youtube is building a nice one from a kit.

Stuart D10 model steam engine.

I don't know why steam engines are called engines when they are actually motors....except maybe for a railroad steam engine taken as a whole.

Woody

[230RN]

While I'm kind of an ass hole with respect to technically correct terminoogy (energy v power, GRRR!), that motor versus engine thing I kind of learned to let go. 

Personally, I feel that direct heat to kinetic is an engine, whereas other conversions to kinetic are motors.  Thus I feel that steam engines are engines, whereas wind turbines are motors.   (Even though they ultimately operate on wind generated by temperature differences in one geographic region versus another.)

However, my Seconds will not accept challenges on that issue, a la the code duello.

And after all, the automotive engine capital of the world used to be called "Motor City."

The language has been so mangled by blurred usages in the past, what?, twenty years?, that even dictionaries are struggling to keep up with denotative versus connotative meanings.  Like, dig it, dude?  (Or "dudette," as the case may be.)

Poor bastards.

Which is an incorrect usage of the term "bastard."

Terry, 230RN
"Actually, you're much safer with me with a gun than you are with me without a gun."

[HeroHog]

Wouldn't a wind turbine be a generator VS a Motor?

[230RN]

Wouldn't a wind turbine be a generator VS a Motor?

I'm thinking in terms of "that which supplies the torque or force to the application."

To me, this is plainly not an engine:

     

It's a water motor.  As in electric motor.

But as I said, I don't think I'd apply a lot of stubborness to my personal view of the difference between a motor and an engine since others have opinions about it.  I'm not about to fight any duels over it since Ingrish is getting so blurry.

The root of "motor," after all, is "motive."

This is an engine since it converts heat directly into motion, but it can also be called a motor... and in fact, often is:

     

I picked that image just for you, HeroHog !

Terry

[HeroHog]

NHRA Top Fuel, if you please. Y'all can keep that wimpy AHRA Top Alcohol to yerselves!