Talk:Steam Engine Construction Set

great job guys, this is looking very nice. I will be helping to redesign the wiki over thanksgiving break and pages like these are the reason why I want to see the wiki better organised and more accessible. I will be adding extensions to make the site even more functional. After video, what other things would you like to see? Calendars, simple tables, charts and graph support? Different editing capabilities? The portal will have feeds of recent changes, new pages, new categories, etc. and will offer more capacity. Also, categorization and the addition of tag extensions and tag and category clouds and graphical interfaces are on the way. if you have any requests or reccomendations, let me know! User: Dikjosef 10:40 CST 11.18.08

Solar and Tesla Turbine
Hello, thank you for the nice website. I was interested in the subject myself (power generation and everything related to renewable energy), but I am not too much the hands-on type and although I had a couple of attempts I did not make much progress.

I want to share a couple of ideas though: Looking up on the net I found a few things on interest. One is the Tesla turbine. It seems to provide good performance with relatively low technology. I am not sure though how you can build one from scratch. Recovering materials from existing machinery might make things easier though.

Another is: building a solar concentrator, I actually tried to make one, but it did not go so well. I was interested in a two-axis parabolic concentrator, and the most straightforward way was to get a TV parabolic antenna and coat it so that it becomes reflective.

The antenna was reasonably sized for my experiment (about 1 sqm), very cheap (around $20) and coated in teflon (I think). The coating was very good, and really hard to scrub off unfortunately. My plan was to get it polished and then chrome-plated. Unfortunately chrome-plating services were not easily available where I lived, so I had to consider other options.

One was chrome spray paint. I understand these come in different flavors, but the one I tried was total rubbish. I tried it both over the initial coating and over the polished surface and I could not obtain a mirror effect, but got instead a non-glossy metal aspect surface. In addition, the polished metal was plain iron and was attacked by rust immediately. (silly me, I tried water polishing - I'm just writing this so that other people don't get into the same pitfalls). Leaving the surface uncoated was not an option, although it was already somewhat reflective, although not perfect.

probably a better option would have been covering it in metalized polyester. But frankly I don't know where to buy this stuff, because it's not the normal shopping I do. I found some online on a website in US

Expanding reading list
I'd suggest adding Richard L. Hill's "Power From Steam" to your reading list. It's a little bland but covers the history of fixed steam engines in England exhaustively, and includes a wealth of comparative data and diagrams.

Expanding refrance sources
For Drafted improved plans from a mechanic,my self,who had and studied a Mechanichal refrance and maintmance principals book from 1907,"tech school stuff" turn of the century, but drafted in a simple and modern form! Email one, Mr. Richard W Foisel,at "Flamen8s@hotmail.com" I have many ready to build plans,and will be more than willing to consult,or Draft to need any thing you can dream of needing,from a small 1/4 hp. engine,too a Ship,or locomotive,type engine. I also Have several new and privously unpattented forms of internal combustion engine, and a book full of unpattented New,or revised fuel source plans as well.

Expanding refrance sources
http://members.pioneer.net/~carlich/RSE/RSEengines.html http://www.steamcar.net/ and my works on a simple convershion of a Triplex high preshure pump to a small 5-25 hp engine and boiler patterns at, http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9852&id=100000244107333&l=8fb4076aae I have paper drawings, That are far more addvanced,but would need production Facillitys, And I will only take bids from production facillitys in the United States of America. Or share them with private Partys who wish to share on a coach built Limited production run as a Artistic Endever.