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

It's not a special model but my buddy and I both have one of these little coffee cup stirling engines. We began a fun competition to see who could get there engine to run the longest on one batch of hot water. The winning time was over 14 hours! The ticket was pre heat the thermos with boiling water, boil a second batch and refill the hot thermos, place engine and set timer. This model will self start on boiling water. The brand of thermos is Artic...a Yeti might do even longer. I believe I have well over 300 hours on this little Stirling engine. If it started to make clicking noises during an endurance run the top of the cyl is sharp glass, a light scrape of pencil lead dust falling in to the bore would cause it to go nearly silent. Fancy extra fine graphite Would likely be even better as pencil lead contains clay. The 2 little stickers on flywheel are reflecting tape, my buddy has a RPM gauge that would pick this up. We also had speed run competition

Those are some really interesting tips Ben , a thermos never occurred to me.

No idea of the hours, but the steamengines here which has seen far the most action, is without any doubt an early 70´s Jensen #20 and the Gintschel Tornado.
Both are my favourite go to engines, all depending on the task at hand, and both kept well out of storage to be fired at short notice.

I was not familiar with both these engines, but as you listed them favorite to steam on short notice I viewed them on youtube. I like the cast base and larger bore on the #20...but the Real treat was the Gintschel Tornado I saw...the model was quite small and very attractive but the steam exhaust and sound of turbine was a real treat...it had a lamp and switch and when he turned on the lamp you could hear it pull the RPM down....I will have to keep an eye out for one of these. Thanks for Sharing!