Here is something a little different.
This in my completed oscillating steam engine. Basically, steam or compressed air enters the bottom silver pipe on the left of the picture, then travels up the lapis lazuli support, into the jade cross support.
Then the air enters the cylinder and pushes the sugelite piston down, spinning the flywheel.
The spent steam exits the silver pipe at the top of the machine.
Base and cross support is made out of Nephrite jade from Canada.
The cylinder is made out of Brazilian quartz. The top is closed with Australian chryoprase and Zimbabwean aquamarine.
The piston is made out of South African sugalite from the western Cape and the conrod and upright supports are made out of Red jasper from Pilgrims rest in the Eastern Transvaal, SA. ( that’s where I found it) The front upright is also made from Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. ( That is where the air runs through.)
The flywheel is made out of black Chalcedony, and the two shafts from Smoky quartz and Rose quartz from Namibia.
The crank is made out of a lamination of Sugalite and Chrysoprase.
The three washers are made out of clear quartz, blue lace agate and pink Botswana agate.
I first made a machine out of window glass, to prove to myself if the concept was actually feasible. I figured that if it didn’t work, no big loss.
It ran well so I felt confident that one made out of stone would work.
One of the problems was that I wanted the flywheel to be removable, so I made a jade woodruff key that slotted into both the flywheel and the flywheel shaft.
Another view. The washer and cross support were also slotted thus allowing the shaft to be removed.
The top view showing the various washers and the inverted aquamarine that acts as the cylinder head.
There were quite a few miscalculation during the construction.
As I was trimming off the Rose Quartz pivot, it snapped off. This was because I was trimming it on a worn 1200 lap, and it set up a high pitched squeal for one nano second. The sound propagated up the quartz rod and shattered it at the end.
This is not the first time this has happened to me.
A couple of years ago, I carved a ring out of solid quartz. It was completely finished, except for the top which I wanted to be flat with facets on the side. I mounted the whole ring in my Imahashi gem cutting machine and cut all the facets. As I started polishing the top of the ring, is set up a squeal and BANG!, the whole ring exploded into millions of little pieces. They were scattered all over the workshop.
No problem, I had enough spare length so I ground the broken piece out and refitted it.
I put up a video on you tube of it running
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