"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:14:39
-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Oh, but where's the fun in that?

I was thinking a small one. Maybe made of wood & bamboo. I think
I saw something like that on MythBusters....

Hmmm...maybe a balsa wood engine? g

If you like steam, do steam. Then you can be an engineer, pull the whistle
and all that -- and watch it all the time it's running, to keep it going.

Stirling it delightfully drama-free. If you screw something up, it just
stops. Small ones are very simple. However, making one larger than 1 hp is
quite a project.

I've heard stories over the years, of using Sterlings for
electricity. Dead dumb simple operation, so ..."light fire, stand
back." No blinkenlichts to watch, but .. "we were happy."

They have a charm of their own. They've beome a cult machine, but, unlike
another cult machine, the Tesla turbine, they actually work.

There have been a number of high-output prototypes, by Saab, the US Navy,
and others, and one navy (Sweden?) powers some of its submarines with them.
They're used to generate electricity in some deep-space probes, using
nuclear isotopes for heat.

But if you want efficiency from them, they're expensive to build, requiring
superalloy heat exchangers that are expensive to fabricate. If you don't
care about efficiency, there are some teachers in Japan who have their kids
make Stirlings from a coffee can, some rubber balloons, and wooden sticks.
They run very well.

--
Ed Huntress