Post edited 5:44 PM – May 11, 2010 by Tyler

Material: various Units (mm)

As luck would have it, I came across a site by a fellow from Florida named Ernie. Ernie is an accomplished machinist and hobbiest who will happily share his engine plans with others upon request. I asked Ernie for a set of plans for his internal gear engine and he quickly fired a set off to me via e-mail. In his email Ernie recommended that I visit the site of a machinist that Ernie considered to be of truly exceptional talent – a man from the Netherlands named Jan Ridders.  Now, I had just finished admiring Ernie's work, so if there was a machinist out their that produced work that Ernie admired, it was definitely worth a look. I was amazed.

Jan's website documents several of his projects, most of which are engines, all of which are amazing. And again, as luck would have it, Jan is also willing to share his plans with his visitors upon requets. I quickly emailed Jan and mentioned that I had set up projectsinmetal.com and I asked him if he would be willing to donate a few plans for my visitors to enjoy. He agreed.

Because this site is focused on offering plans suitable for the beginner, I asked Jan for his most simple, straightforward set of plans for each of his 3 categories. Stirling Engines, Internal Combustion (IC) Engines, and Flame Eaters. Obviously all three plans would be considered advanced projects by anyone new to the hobby, and therefor they will all be listed under the "Advanced" category on this site.

Below is the PDF file that Jan provided for his "easiest and most reliable" stirling engine – the Coffee Cup Stirling Engine. Here's a video of a few different versions of this engine in action:

Be sure to visit Jan's website for more inspiration!

And if you don't have enough materials in your scrap bin to build a stirling from scratch, they're are tons of great kits on Ebay and books on Amazon to get you started. Just look below. Be aware, however, that most kits on Ebay aren't ready to assemble, they just save you the time of gathering up all the necessary materials. Usually machining is still required to complete the kit . . . which is kinda the whole point.

  Stirling_Coffee_Cup_-_Jan_Ridders.pdf (1.6 MiB, 4,537 hits)

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Awesome! How long did it take? I wanted to make Jan's stirling first, but I was nervious that the tolerances needed would be beyond my abilities so I opted to make his flamesucker instead. It's good to know you were able to make it without much trouble. Will you have time to take a few pictures? Or better yet, video? I'd like to see how it turned out. When I start on mine I'll be sure to ask you about your setup.

I wonder why it wouldn't let you upload the movie. How big is the file? I upload all of mine to Youtube and then link to them from their Youtube link – that way I'm using Youtube's bandwith whenever someone watches it. Do you have a Youtube account? If not, you could send me the video and I could upload it to my Youtube account for you. Or you could just start a Youtube account. It's free… Let me know. I'd like to see the video.