Multi-Media Instructional DVDs for the

Hobby Machinist,

Metalworker

and

Vintage Motorcycle Enthusiast

You've been asking for 'project' presentations; here's one of the best

projects we've found!

Chris Wood of Littlemachineshop.com designed this little gem as a fun-build project that would put to use a range of normal machinist skills, and that can be built using a mini lathe and a drill-press or mini mill.  Mine easily runs on less than 20 p.s.i. of air.  (While it's called a steam engine, compressed air is so much safer and convenient.)

We've built it on-camera, and can tell you it was a very pleasant experience.

After you've built it, an extra hour or so 'dressing' it up will yield a very attractive example of the machinist's art, suitable for display on your desk or shelf. 

But the VERY BEST THING IS, this simple design can be modified to be pretty much anything you'd want!  The operating principles of this engine would allow it to be used on a wide array of possible cylinder layouts, from radials to V-8's with a little imagination and engineering trickery! As an example, look at my personal project below...

I built and extra cylinder and piston (a short bit of work) and did a little bit of trickery on the engine base, and I made mine into a variable cylinder-angle twin!  This engine can run as an opposed twin, a 90 deg. V-twin, or anything in between!