My "Custom" Stirling Engine Workshop

[Tom Booth]

My Stirling engine interests have outgrown the kitchen table and small cramped basement workbench in the house.

A while ago we looked into this old commercial building that had been for sale. It seemed like a total disaster, near the point of possible collapse, but after a brief inspection, I thought it really might not be that bad, so we took a chance and bought it, as the price was very low for a large commercial building in the central downtown area.

My main interest was the basement, which turned out to be enormous, with a 7 foot high ceiling giving plenty of head room, which for me at 6'2"" is an important consideration.

The only real issue with the building was it is very old. Historic, infact, with a lot of mortis and tenon ,one critical joint, of which, near the staircase failed, causing a large section of the second floor, about 27' to hang down. A very, potentially dangerous situation, but from a structural point of view, relatively easy to repair.

So, at probably 1/10 the potential market value, not only do I have a huge workshop, but we also have the three floors above it. We have other plans for that, though part of the main floor will likely include some space for Stirling engines, for sale. But not unless I succeed in setting up the workshop and building some excellent engines, but before that can happen, the building itself needs to be saved.

The first thing that needed to be done is pouring some concrete footings in the basement for some new support posts. Only one beam straddling the staircase actually split at the mortis joint, but there is a similar joint at the other end of the staircase I don't want to take any chance with, so, new supports at both ends, from the basement, all the way up to the third floor.

The big stack of sawmill lumber in the begining of the video below, is for a large heavy duty engine workbench, that will have the metal lathe, drill press etc. mounted on it.


https://youtu.be/klYx6Tz3Ziw

https://youtu.be/I_DzbESvAiM


With any luck, this space will be the origin for many high quality model, as well as larger power producing Stirling engines.

It will involve a lot of experimentation and learning new skills, like metal casting, which I haven't had any experience with yet, but doesn't look too difficult.

I have an idea that I would like to build "custom" engines for various uses, exactly what, I'm not entirely sure. To run off heat from a compost? Pump water, generate remote power, charge batteries, who knows what all.

Lots of different possibilities. But these concrete footings are a start.

[Bret]

Sounds like a great project.
You based in USA or UK?
What size engine (Wattage output) are you thinking of?
Good luck with your project.
Kind regards
Bret

[Tom Booth]

Sounds like a great project.
You based in USA or UK?
What size engine (Wattage output) are you thinking of?
Good luck with your project.
Kind regards
Bret

US New York State (not NY city)

Pretty much anything and everything, depending on what people want or are looking for, including individual or unique situations or circumstances, so the idea behind "custom", as in custom cars

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom_car

With an emphasis on high performance, style, unique applications, "built to the buyers specifications".

For example, if someone wants a Stirling engine to run off their own wood stove, chances are it would have to be retrofit in some way, as there is such a wide variety of wood stoves already in use.

I would also like to make "kinetic art" type model engines. "Steam punk" style and such.

The other thing I'm interested in is small model engines with functionality. Not just something that runs and gets put away, at best lighting an LED, but something that could, for instance, be used as a cell phone charging station, a bedside waterfall tranquility lamp/night light.

And who knows what uses I might, or others might dream up in the future?

For all that to happen, I think there needs to be considerable improvement and advancement. Most small model Stirling engines available on the market today are inefficient to begin with, out of Ballance, poorly engineered, thoughtless selection of materials, often lacking in beauty or style, not really functional or useful.

A "tranquility lamp" Stirling engine night stand cannot make a clattering noise, vibrate violently, falling off the nightstand, fail to run well enough to do the job of lighting an LED or supplying a trickle of water to a water feature.

In short, good quality engines.

I don't have any huge budget or income to work with, so I will likely have to start out very small and cautiously, and use whatever income I get to build up the business. Though I hardly would consider it a business, just something I enjoy doing.

[Tom Booth]

Don't know how that emoticon got in there. Unintended anyway.

Google Earth app link: https://earth.app.goo.gl/EvzLCb

The front of the place looks a little different now.

The Stirling engine workshop will be in the basement of that building, The street level will be a market for mostly hand crafts and also farmers market, locally grown.

The second floor is one big open room that could be rented out for various things.

The third floor is going to be an art guild/gallery. It's kind of a big open loft.

The building is situated on what was once part of the Erie canal.

There is a website about the future market above the workshop that provides some history.

https://www.oldpacketboatmarket.com

There is a very high Amish community presence in this area, and they all live off the grid, so there is a local need for alternative power equipment of all descriptions.

I stopped in a local Amish shop yesterday to show someone one of my model engines that they were interested in seeing.

I was astounded when they invited me into their back workshop.

There were six 3D printers, three were busy printing out housings for remote control lighting. There was a robotic "picker" machine for making circuit boards. All kinds of electronic gadgets I've never seen anywhere before, like electronic pure sine wave inverters customized to run off the batteries of the various battery operated cordless tools, like Milwaukee, Makita, DeWalt...

I never imagined that the Amish were so technologically savvy, riding here and there across town in their horse and buggies.

I was trying to demonstrate the engine, straight out of the box. But the LED was not attached and I was trying to hold the LED onto the contacts of the little generator., And burning my hand in the process.

One Amish boy asked, "would you like me to solder that on for you?"

I said "sure, that would be great, "

Then I started to try to explain about LED's and polarity and to. be sure...

Then I stopped myself.

These people were building their own off grid solar systems and remote control LED lighting systems. They knew all about LED polarity, obviously.

In a moment he was back with a working engine

They are very excited about the prospect of scaling up the little model engine. The Amish could put it to immediate use in any number of different ways.

[Tom Booth]

Turning the pile of lumber into a work bench.

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Starting to take shape:

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[Tom Booth]

So, Estelle, seeing the three big sheets of plywood I put up to hang tools on, talked me into painting a mural.

So, why not?

Very short video:

https://youtu.be/J5dw5MPoedU

[staska]

You need metal working lathes.. a lot of them. And a skill to use them :)

[Tom Booth]

You need metal working lathes.. a lot of them....

Partially true, eventually.

Though, the plan is for at least some parts of some engines to be ceramic.

Resize_20220313_120443_3679.jpg (195.21 KiB) Viewed 12215 times

Making heat engines all metal is like using aluminum foil to insulate the copper windings in an electric generator.


This mini-metal lathe should at least get me started

Resize_20220313_120629_9425.jpg (168.61 KiB) Viewed 12215 times

[Bret]

It's all taking shape
Good luck with it.

[Tom Booth]

It's all taking shape
Good luck with it.

Thanks!

[Tom Booth]

Almost done. The "After" was taken a few days ago, so there are actually more shelves and under counter drawers and cabinets at this point, not shown.

Starting to move down all the tools, supplies and machinery.

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The middle unpainted (or actually painted light blue) area will have (actually already does) shelving for all the model Stirling engines so far accumulated.

That space is really less than 1/4 of a huge basement, so there is, or will be, room for expansion. Other areas are still undergoing some renovations/structural repair, cleanup.

[Tom Booth]

Trying out the new addition to the workshop:

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$30 from a neighbors Facebook marketplace ad.

It works! Boiled water in 2 minutes.

[skyofcolorado]

Re microwave, was it you Tom that was proposing a microwave powered engine? If so, at least the efficiency should be a simple calculation of watts in vs. watts out.

[Tom Booth]

Re microwave, was it you Tom that was proposing a microwave powered engine? If so, at least the efficiency should be a simple calculation of watts in vs. watts out.

Yes, that was me, though there was an earlier thread on the subject several years ago.

The main reason for the microwave though, is to power a microwave kiln for making foamed.glass/ceramic. The lightweight/high temperature/very strong and potentially also decorative displacer(s) -- including the fused glass butterfly wings. For small model engines anyway.

I'll still need the bigger kiln for larger engines.

Also, other ceramic engine parts.

Incidentally, also a microwave powered engine might be interesting to experiment with.

[Tom Booth]

All I have left (almost anyway) mostly is to lower some of the heavier machinery down into the workshop so I've been working all day to build this tripod chain hoist to make it a little easier.

It will also be handy for getting that monster Stirling engine down there so I can work on it.

The ground floor has all the stuff lined up to go down, but the engine was the last thing in the building, so nearly everything else will have to go down first just to get it out of the way so then I can bring the engine through.

That way the chain hoist will also get a good trial. The engine is relatively light weight compared with some of the other stuff I have to get down there.

https://youtu.be/rECdEw8SqGk