Hi,
I finally finished my Grasshopper engine so here are a few photos of the end result along with a short video of it running on steam.
For those unfamiliar with the engine it's a double acting half beam 'Grasshopper' engine made from a design by Stewart Hart who kindly supplied me with the plans. It's a bar stock engine that uses the same cylinder and valve chest as Stewarts other 'Potty' series engines.
It is predominantly steel construction with an aluminium cylinder / valve chest and a brass piston with graphite corded piston rings. I decided to scale up Stewarts original by 50% so it is approx. 1" bore x 1
3/
4" stroke, the flywheel is 10" diameter. It weighs a rather hefty 30lbs.
Here it can be seen running on steam, with a strong wind outside and my gas tank getting low my little boiler was struggling to cope but you at least get the idea :-)
Lastly I'd like to thank those of you who offered your support and advice on my build log of this engine.
A special thanks also to Stew Hart for designing the engine and supplying me with the plans and to forum member PGP001 who helped me out in machining the flywheel that was too large to fit in my lathe.
Cheers
Peter