Building Grizzly Stirling Engine

Discussion on Stirling or "hot air" engines (all types)
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alexkuzn
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2011 1:58 pm

Building Grizzly Stirling Engine

Post by alexkuzn »

My son and I have build a Grizzly horizontal Stirling engine.
It does not want to work on a regular alcohol burner.
It takes a Map gas torch to get the heating cylinder red hot to keep it going.
There is no too much friction. If you flick it with no heat it'll rotate 5-6 times before stopping.
Cooling cylinder and cooling piston have pretty good fit. When oiled there are no visible air leaks between cooling piston and the cylinder.
But heating piston is machined pretty loose inside heating cylinder. I mean really loose.
Is it OK? I am thinking about machining a new heating cylinder on a lathe.
Part #12 in this manual - http://cdn0.grizzly.com/manuals/h8103_m.pdf
My question is how thick the heating cylinder wall should be. The kit's cylinder has very thin walls should we try to get it as thin as possible or a little thinker wall is OK?

Thanks,
Daniel & Alex
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