Ed Huntress wrote:

(...)

What was the bucket for? Were you making a steam turbine?

Solar steam. It was gonna be nifty!
I figured the turbine output would be a nice RPM
match for a small alternator.
It was a ton of fun translating the equations into a
solid model! It was a thrill to see that the bucket
returned a water jet at the proper angle, too.

I've always wanted to make a DeLaval turbine.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...nchor=ref66516

That is a neat looking thing!

I even worked out some tooling for a faceplate to turn the buckets.
I never got very far with it, however, as other things came up.

I can relate.

Now I'm fantasizing about building a thermoacoustic engine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu0N7...eature=related

All the thrills for about 1% of the effort!


--Winston