Please scroll down for the photos.

Here are some pictures of a "coke bottle" steam engine that I built using an original engine as a pattern.

The "coke bottle" profile is viewed looking either at the front or back of the engine.

Ed Rockwood built the original engine as a kit in the 1920's. Ed Rockwood (W6BBJ) gave the engine to me in the 1950's after he had a fire in his workshop. The engine was corroded, rusty and stuck. It was taken apart and made to work again. I later on gave the engine to a good friend of mine. I regretted this later on and I dearly wanted either the original or one like it.

After my retirement I borrowed the original engine and duplicated it with my sand casting and machine shop capabilities at home. As can be seen by the photos below, it took a bit of time and patience to duplicate all the parts.

Both engines work equally well and the original was returned to my friend when my project was finished. It took about 30 hours of work to duplicate.

I have some mpg files of my engine running on live steam both in a slow and fast mode. The engine will operate by mouth pressure. The slow running engine had a steam pressure of about 5 pounds of steam pressure. The higher speed was with about 20 pounds of steam pressure.

Click here to view the steam engine running under live steam

Click here to view the steam engine running under live steam at slow speed

Here is the old 1920's engine on the left and the one that I created in 2006 on the right.

Both engines operate equally well both on compressed air and live steam.

Note all the parts that were required to be fabricated for the new engine. The original engine had

the cylinder support, flywheel and crank bed made out of cast iron. I copied the original castings and

made them out of bronze.

A side view of the newly completed engine.

A shot of the crank shaft and connecting rod big end. On the right side is

the eccentric for operating the steam valve chest.

Note the cross head that the connecting rod attaches to. The piston rod

is attached to the top of the cross head. The cross head keeps the piston

rod parallel to the cylinder bore.

The valve chest is on the left of the cylinder. Note the eccentric rod below

it. The steam is valved either to the top of the piston pushing it down and

exhausting steam below the piston. On the piston up stroke steam is valved

in the bottom to push it up and spent steam is exhausted on the top.

This is called a double acting steam engine since there are 2 power strokes per revolution.

A front view of the nearly completed engine.

Finished engine on live steam. Note the new brass flywheel. The black one on

the previous photos was borrowed from the original 1920's engine.