Working glass steam engine!

[k00m]

Just came across a video of a miniature glass steam engine and thought some of you might like to see it! Unfortunately the creator's website is all in Czech (I think), so I haven't managed to find out much more about it.

[Emerald]

That's a stunner

[helbels]

Here's a VERY rough translation of the "About" section of the website, from Google Translate.  It's hard going to read, but you kind of get the gist in there somewhere:


The ačátek actually occurred much, much earlier than ever born first glass steam engine. Sometime in the mid-seventies, in college, when I began to discover the magical properties of the material - glass. At the time, when one learns to produce forms and procedures used in the production of which has already tried someone else, so at that time I began fleshing out his fantasy. If I recall, one of the first products entirely surpassing the technical direction of glassmakers and then maybe even another non-produced, was a glass doll. Friends I had one girl who played a puppet theater and I wanted to gift her something special. And so I made her puppet, marionette, which had movable arms and legs and was suspended on glass threads. The paradox was that the production itself was a matter of one or two hours, but to devise a way to pack and transport it, so I needed a few days.

The idea to make a steam engine, I got up a little later. That I was after training, the results fulfill planned development of the socialist economy and to my mind quietly gnawed away the idea that that company to happiness and perfection is something missing. Yes, it was a glass steam engine! ... Crazy about you, you give it all together ... ... you do not go ... ... ... dabbles gardener again, so probably sounded like sentences supporting the development of young talent and moved emergence parostroje ten years. Until 1988, when I was with the permission of the National Committee started a business privately, have your own workshop, and no time to brake in the form of the head.

R ozhodnete If you do moving things out of glass, the largest engineering and manufacturing complications is the inability to use screw, rivet and other processes, otherwise quite ordinary and usual when working with metal. There's a done deal to take iron and copy it from the glass.

N ázorným example is the differential production of glass for my car. This is one of those swollen pipe as some cars tend to have the hind bikes. To understand its function, so I got one on the junkyard. At home, I dismantled it and oh. S it is tajdle screwed and bolted over there and this is the spin, but this again may not, and it has to be in the axis, and hell, it 's it has teeth. Well toothed wheel made of glass, so that thus we teach in college. But I want the diferák! So I take literature and investigate how it is made of iron gear. It says here that the teeth have a module. The module is such a set of requirements that those teeth were large enough to withstand anything and that rolled the succession to fit into the other teeth and .... Well yeah, but Mechanical Engineering table will accurately describe the teeth of steel, bronze, nylon and God knows what material, but a glass or a comma. What is it about? That should not it? And no one or more needed? Okay, so teeth are milled. How and what I'm going to cut glass? No. Then it would be better hone. And we're back at it. The technology used for grinding glass, what we learned, are useless to me. So otherwise. I want a tooth that has had such and such a shape that was so, so great. It will be fun. You take a piece of brass tajhle logs and vysoustružím to the radius and then do such přípraveček, it will rotate with it and I applied to loosely bound water and abrasive tooth will be in the world. Cink. The tooth, the bitch is broke. Well, this way does not lead the way. What next? Well, the best would be diamond cut. Buy you can not, there is virtually no Internet (we are in 1990). But I studied that: diamond bort binds in a nickel electroplating bath using nickel excretion in the electrically conductive surface of the cutting tool, the estimated size of reduced diamond grain which overgrow are directed to material removal rate ratio of strength to fit. Tajbl Oh yuck. The sentence which I literally breathtaking. Only with hindsight I realize that understanding the sentence was on the whole the simplest self-production felling. So I go look for diamond dust. I start in a goldsmith and asked the salesman, "Hello, I need about a handful of tiny diamonds." "You know, I want to make a milling machine for the production of gear wheels made of glass," go ahead, while the salesman is dialing into the madhouse. Finally, but believed and promised to help, let me ask say a week or so. Surprisingly the next day he calls me and tells me to stop that little Georgy had me there. Yeah, the way somewhere and buy three cans Mass., he is a adored. So I have three cans of pork in its own juice, became owner of about 3ccm artificial diamond grain from Russia. Then you just wanted to buy a nickel bath, nickel electrode, find your power adapter regulated power, and some other chemicals tested. Glory, the attempt was successful the first time. Clamped into the machine, najíždím kleněným the wheel ... and cornetto, wheel broke. Hell, he 's it's almost not eating at all! How so? Why? And looking again and ask. "Yes sir, the diamond must voživit," one expert told me. I guess it polejvat living water, I think. "With that, he must first go to carborundum von vodrbe you the nickel begins to stare the dijámant". Done. Simple, simple, effective. Joy to behold, a tool eats as State Bank. We grind diferenciálové main wheel. Number of teeth 57th In 55th tooth empowers me euphoria přitlačím little more ... and cornetto. The tooth is in .... Well actually there is all round, all the work, because it can not be repaired, you must make all again. What does it mean? Take a pipe diameter of 50mm, using special pliers of graphite (clearly, that my production at these joking not to buy anything) dial blank for future rounds. Prepare your axis and with paprskama vtavit her to the center of the wheel. Bach, it must, if possible, not even throwing in the direction of radial and axial neither. And off it into the furnace to remove tension. Tempering cycle lasts 6 hours. When it gets cold, it is clamped into the machine and wear down the exact outer diameter. Then it is clamped and otherwise using the cut-off wheels begin to grind your teeth again. A mainly quiet, no rush and the more the teeth are, the slower ride into view. And then? Fame, applause, I have finished pinion. The differential that there are, variously sized, six. Thus many successes, we will not disturb you and when it is done, so come show off.

[sparrow]

Oh my!

[Redhotsal]

What an incredible achievement - so much skill. Such a pity that they allowed complete nobheads to leave their idiotic comments.

[fionaess]

That is just fantastic - just wonderful...

[spexy]

That's amazing! must show my OH.

Thanks for posting.

[garishglobes]

I loved that, thank you    The translation is interesting too, thanks Helen. Not the easiest going for sure, but fascinating to learn a bit about how he put it together and the difficulties he encountered.

[Studio Girl]

OMG I can hardly believe my eyes
Thank you for sharing

[sparrow]

Cink. The tooth, the bitch is broke.

The same sentiment, the world over.

[kathsd]

that is absolutely amazing.
thank you for posting
kath

[Steampunkglass]

Thats inspired and inspiring!!!!!!

[Margram]

Stunning

[Magpie]

Brilliant, I love steam engines, love playing with the little one we've got at work. Forwarded the link to my boss. Thanks for sharing Kerra. And translating Helen.