Material: Steel
Units (mm)

Here’s a nice set of plans by Clark P. for a small 5cm vise for your mill. Clark wrote a great instructable on the project that I’ve linked to below. You can view instructable via the embedded player, or you can download a PDF copy of the step-by-step plans (at the very bottom of the post below the flash player).

You can also download a copy of the PDF plans directly from the instructables website, but you need to be a member to do that, so I’m saving you that step by linking to them here.

A small low profile machine vise – More DIY How To Projects

  A-small-low-profile-machine-vise.pdf (489.1 KiB, 2,417 hits)
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  Small_Vise_Drawings.pdf (187.1 KiB, 2,030 hits)
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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, 7,161 hits)
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Material: Steel
Units (mm)

Thor Hansen has several great plans on his website. This particular plan is for a very rigid toolpost that can be made completely on the lathe (not requiring a mill). Thor walks the reader through the process in the PDF document below. Be sure to visit Thor’s site for more great plans.

  A_Toolpost_for_Cross-Slide.pdf (234.6 KiB, 4,036 hits)
NOTE: You need to be a registered member (and logged in) to download this file. You can register or log in using the "Log In" section located in the upper left corner of the site (don't worry, it's free to register and your email address will be kept private). Please note, subscribing to the RSS feed is not the same as registering. Also, registering for the site will grant you forum access, allowing you to log into the forum using the same username and password you used to register for the site.

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