workshop today we’re going to be taking
a look at how you can build your own
very simplified version of a potentially
complicated machine steam engine is one
of the earliest ways that people were
able to harness heat and turn it into
motion we’re not going to be building
anything that could move something the
size of a train but we are going to try
building something that uses heat to
create motion the supplies we need are
really simple a tea light candle a
couple of pieces of cork sheet and a
very thin metal – ideally we would be
using a thin copper tube
since copper conducts heat better than
luminol but copper tubing this small
proved very difficult to find
I picked this aluminum tube up at a
hobby store for about 2 bucks the
interior diameter of this aluminum tube
is probably only about 1/16 of an inch
maybe one and a half millimeters tea
lights are available at a lot of places
I got mine at a craft store in a pack of
50 for 3 bucks my cork sheets are also
from a craft store and I think they’re
usually designed for going on the bottom
of coasters but we’re gonna use them for
something different the basic ideas
we’ll have our tub full of water our
cork sheets will float on that with our
candle on top of it then a small piece
of our aluminum tubing will come up
through one side of the cork wrap and a
coil above the flame and then go down
through the cork on the other side with
our coil full of water when we light our
candle the heat should turn the water
into steam which will expand and push
out the bottom to start out we want to
put a nice circular bend in the middle
of part of our tube it’s important we
don’t kink the metal tube because we do
need the water and steam to be able to
travel all the way through it so let’s
try wrapping it around this bottle of
paint to see if we can get a nice smooth
curve in it that doesn’t kink
[Music]
alright that worked out pretty well you
can see that we’ve got the aluminum tube
going up making one complete circuit and
then heading back down through the other
side we have too much metal tube on the
sides here so we want to trim that off
and we want to measure to make sure we
have the right length so that it’s
situated just above our candle flame for
maximum heat to get a good measurement
of where we should cut our tube
let’s light our candle and then position
our tube right over it so we can see how
long we want it to be on the sides we
now have a fairly stable flame on our
candle so we can measure the height that
we want with our coil you may also
notice that the loop I put in the
aluminum is large enough that the sides
of our aluminum tube fit on the sides of
the candle we don’t want to use
something that gives us such a tight
coil that they would run into the candle
with our candle on our cork sheets we
can see exactly how far down we need the
sides of our aluminum tubes to come we
do want our tubes to extend a little bit
below the level of the cork they’ll push
down below the cork into the water and
then we’ll angle them slightly to give
our engine some Drive I’ll use this pipe
cutting tool to cut off the excess of
our aluminum without crimping the ends
now this aluminum tubing is so thin that
it barely fits in our pipe cutter so
even after using the pipe cutter I have
to give it a little bit of help
a quick test of blowing into one side
lets us know that we still have a good
flow all the way through our tube now
our cork sheets are a little bit larger
than we need them to be and we don’t
want any excess weight or drag so let’s
cut a slightly smaller circle out of our
larger circles the diameter of this
electrical tape is slightly wider than
the stance of our aluminum pipe so that
should be a good size
I should also say if you have thicker
sheets of cork you probably don’t need
to stack two of them together the way
I’m going to this just provides a little
bit of extra stability as it floats on
the water now we need to poke holes in
both sheets of cork so that the sides of
our aluminum tube can run down through
the cork into the water that will be
below let’s just use a spare piece of
our aluminum tubing to stab through the
cork
I used this spare piece of tubing
because poking through the cork can plug
up the hole with some of the course
material and we want to be sure we have
good flow on the tube that we’ll be
carrying our water and steam we can now
see the basic design that we’re gonna be
going for with the bottom points of our
tube angled slightly we should get
motion that drives our entire engine in
a circle water inside the coil should
heat up from the candle turn into steam
and then be forced at the bottom of the
tubes
let’s slightly bend the bottoms of the
tubes so that as the steam is forced out
it’s at an angle that will then push our
engine into spinning
of course we need to be very careful as
we bend these to make sure we don’t kink
[Music]
let’s just blow through the tube again
to make sure we still have good airflow
yep still good they’re still good flow
through the tube just what we want
now let’s fit the two ends of our tube
down through the cork it’ll take some
angling and twisting a little bit to get
it in there now that we’ve bent the ends
but it should fit just fine and cork is
pretty flexible you can see the tube
comes up through one side coils around
goes back down to the other and with the
two ends bent at opposing angles
hopefully when the steam is ejected it
should cause the whole thing spin we can
see our set up but before we put the
candle on and light it there’s one more
step we need to take we want some water
to start inside of our metal coil so
let’s briefly take it off of our cork
and use it as a straw to suck a little
bit of water up through the tube and
then reinstall it all right there we go
we’ve got water coming through tastes
carefully line our candle up right
underneath our coil and we light that
off it should give enough heat that our
whole engine begins to spin I spilled a
little bit of candle wax on the sides
but that shouldn’t affect the movement
very much now this setup is a little bit
finicky sometimes it does a really good
job of pulling more water in and
continuing to spin and sometimes it
seems to sort of stall I think you have
to get it in just the right spot so it’s
really doing a good job of heating the
water up but I have had times where I
got this to keep spinning almost
perpetually for up to 20 minutes I want
to see if I can do something to
illustrate how much the water is
circulating through this coil I’m gonna
try adding a little bit of blue dye to
some water and then filling the coil
with that water hopefully when that
heats up we’ll be able to see the blue
squirt out of the bottom Jets now I am a
little bit worried that as I try and set
this back in the water some of it will
just drain right out of the tube and
start coloring the water in our tub
prematurely you can see a little bit of
blue water is starting to escape on one
side but not too much of it so hopefully
this will still give us a good
illustrative example
there you have it how to take a little
bit of aluminum to a tea light candle
and a little bit of cork mat and turn it
into a working steam engine this whole
project only cost about five bucks for
all of the supplies and it’s pretty cool
to watch it work thanks for joining us
for this project today and remember to
come gear yourself up with products and
merch at the king of random calm see you
there all right reset how gosh alright
that comes out really hot and powerfully
you try to cover farther up my arm and
it just keeps shooting even more far of
my arm [Music]