Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Found Bruce’s video in case your Walmart carries one or the other (mine is .7mm his is 1mm)

We have a store in Michigan called Hobby Lobby(think they are a national chain) that has a couple isles dedicated to beading/jewelry making. I used to think this store was for crafty girls only but I keep finding useful stuff for My hobby bench! I had planned a trip as I know they have Very flexible metal cable in these sizes (planned upgrade for Wilesco crane) but now I will look for this type of product to! I am hopeful to score some similar but in "Belt" Black...or Dark brown would not be bad as well, my mother used to sew on and old foot pedal operated sewing machine and it ran on a brown "Round" cross section shaped leather belt. As a child I was fascinated by how well this old machine worked.

more good stuff, thanks Ben.

Success! This Stretch Magic is not quite as low cost as what Nick found, but if you Must have black it may be an option.
  I payed $2.99 for 5 meters.
  Hobby Lobby had quite a selection of sizes but 3/4 of stock was clear and the rest black. I managed to score some 1mm in black.
  I did not have any accessories ready to power, so I put 2 QX6's back to back.
  The left one is fired and the right one (Disabled) is being Driven.
  I tried to power with the unfired making vacuum but the power engine would not quite do it, so I unhooked the displacer piston rod and pulled the side bolt that makes the seal between pistons.
  It runs now about 60-70% of no load.
I really Like my new black belt, thanks Nick and Bruce for pioneering this effort!

PS: the picture quality is low, I dimmed the lighting so you could see the flame on left engine.

PPS: they do make Stretch Magic in Glitter color...So if you feel the need to add some Bling to your table, that might do it


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I picked up some 0.5mm as well when I was at the store...I don't know of an engine that Needs this small of a belt, (off top of my head) but I wanted to see if I could weld it. I did manage a weld but it was not pretty. I need to get my Good reading glasses from work and practice my weld method a bit more.

   A bit off topic but it was Big Fun to belt up the QX6, it's seems Stirling engines are like Steam engines in that they make nicer "sounds" under load than No load conditions.