Plan

Plans to build the 1906 “Bill” 4-Cycle Gas Engine Advertised by the Downing Engine Works of Des Plains, Illinois in 1906 for $125.00, the 3 horsepower “Bill” engine is somewhat of an enigma. A patent was issued to William A. Downing for the design but it is not known how many were actually produced, if any. The very simple and attractive engine was probably intended for light duty work such as pumping water, powering a grinding wheel or a small dynamo, etc. A listing for the “Bill” can be found on page 141 of American Gasoline Engines Since 1872 by C.H. Wendel. This is an approximate 1/3 scale model of the 1906 “Bill” engine. It runs on propane gas. On liquid fuel, due to the remoteness from the engine, the mixer soon gets cold from liquid fuel vaporization and after that the fuel doesn’t vaporize very well which results in ragged operation. A propane demand valve was made for it and running on propane solves that problem. I have to presume that the prototype engine encountered the same problems (it may have ran on illuminating gas), but there was no propane to the rescue back in those days! Engine operation on propane is a big plus. Valves and spark plug stay very clean and there is no smelly exhaust! I have been changing the crankcase oil every 10 running hours since break-in but it still looks new, so I am going to extend it to 20 hours. This wouldn’t be the case using a liquid fuel. “Bill” is machined and fabricated primarily of brass bar stock. The only castings used are the pipe elbows. The crankshaft runs on ball bearings, the cylinder has a cast iron liner and the piston is aluminum alloy. The plans set consists of 18 pages of drawings plus a page of construction notes. Included in the plans are a propane demand valve, radiator/water pump/fan and details on mounting a Hall sensor and magnet so that electronic ignition can be used without contact points. Specifications: Flywheel Dia.: 3.125″, Cylinder Bore: 1″, Piston Stroke: 1.250″, Engine Height: 6.85″ All of our plans projects are machined from metal bar stock (supplied by you, the builder) and no castings are required. This is the lowest cost way for you to build as the metals can usually be purchased from metal salvage yards for around $2.00 or so per pound for aluminum, brass and stainless steel. But as can be seen, most of the model engines are designed to look like they were in fact made from castings instead of rectangular blocks and round bars of metal. High precision machining is required. Experience building other types of engines from scratch is suggested.You will need a lathe and a milling machine with the usual tooling items. You will need a horizontal/vertical rotary table for your mill if you want to duplicate the visual design aspects of some of the projects – spoked flywheels, fluted columns etc., but the engines will operate just as well without those features. Please note – we do not have any ready to run engines or bolt together engine kits for sale. The plans are for model engines – the engines can be scaled to any size, but no claims of suitability for practical power generation are made. The Plans Set drawings are high quality computer generated drawings using a professional CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and printed on 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheets with a laser printer. This permits you to insert them in plastic sheet protectors so they won’t get soiled as you use them in the shop. Dimensions are in U.S. inch decimals – no fractions – which makes it easy for you to change the scale of your model to suit your machine tool capacity or the materials you have on hand or have access to. Multiply dimensions by 25.4 to obtain millimeter dimensions. NOTE: If you want your plans right away, send us a message with your email address and we will email you a link to download a PDF of the plans. If you are successful in downloading, we will cancel mailing of the hard copy and refund 80% of the eBay shipping cost. We are the owners of this copyrighted material. Sale or giving away our plans is strictly prohibited!

Plans to build the PowerHouse 4-Cycle Gas Engine The “PowerHouse” engine is a long stroke design for medium to low speed operation. By having a long stroke, it is capable driving a load such as a generator or pump at a leisurely pace. It is made from bar stock and was designed to be as easy to build as possible while retaining good looks. The frame and base plate is from aluminum alloy plate. The cylinder, piston and head are of cast iron bar stock; and the flywheel is of mild steel. The engine is air cooled by fan (belt driven or electric), although it will also operate without one. Spark advance/retard is adjustable while the engine is running. The carburetor is an easy to build type with adjustable speed control and an air cleaner. The engine will run an hour or so on 2 ounces of fuel. You will need a 6″ lathe and a small milling machine with a 6″ diameter rotary table. This engine should be as easy for beginners to build as any, and easier than most because the engine frame is so simple. The model runs from 500 RPM idle to around 1,800 RPM or so wide open and the sound is real nice with the right exhaust pipe at about 800 RPM. The plans set consists of 16 sheets of quality laser printed CAD drawings and 1 sheet of construction and assembly notes.Specifications: Flywheel Dia.: 4.7″, Cylinder Bore: 1″, Piston Stroke: 1-1/2″, Overall Length: 11-1/4″, Height: 5″ (lubricator) All of our plans projects are machined from metal bar stock (supplied by you, the builder) and no castings are required. This is the lowest cost way for you to build as the metals can usually be purchased from metal salvage yards for around $2.00 or so per pound for aluminum, brass and stainless steel. But as can be seen, most of the model engines are designed to look like they were in fact made from castings instead of rectangular blocks and round bars of metal. High precision machining is required. Experience building other types of engines from scratch is suggested.You will need a lathe and a milling machine with the usual tooling items. You will need a horizontal/vertical rotary table for your mill if you want to duplicate the visual design aspects of some of the projects – spoked flywheels, fluted columns etc., but the engines will operate just as well without those features. Please note – we do not have any ready to run engines or bolt together engine kits for sale. The plans are for model engines – the engines can be scaled to any size, but no claims of suitability for practical power generation are made.The Plans Set drawings are high quality computer generated drawings using a professional CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and printed on 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheets with a laser printer. This permits you to insert them in plastic sheet protectors so they won’t get soiled as you use them in the shop. Dimensions are in U.S. inch decimals – no fractions – which makes it easy for you to change the scale of your model to suit your machine tool capacity or the materials you have on hand or have access to. Multiply dimensions by 25.4 to obtain millimeter dimensions. NOTE: If you want your plans right away, send us a message with your email address and we will send you a link to download a PDF of the plans. If you are successful in downloading, we will cancel mailing of the hard copy and refund 80% of the eBay shipping cost.We are the owners of this copyrighted material. Sale or giving away our plans is strictly prohibited!

Plans to build the Beamer Stirling Cycle Beam Engine Beamer represents a large Victorian style beam engine that could have existed in the mid to late 1800’s. It is a unique design and nothing like it has ever been done before. A belt driven cooling fan allows the engine to operate continuously at a temperature only slightly above ambient! All shafts are fitted with ball bearings for a smooth running and maintenance free engine. An operating fly ball governor which is driven by the fan belt adds much interest to the engine, but it doesn’t regulate the engine speed. The engine runs at a nice leisurely pace from a 1/4″ dia. x 5/16″ tall flame of an alcohol lamp, or one of my mini propane burners as shown. The plans set consists of 15 sheets of drawings and two sheets of construction notes. Specifications: Flywheel Diameter: 4.3″, Cylinder Bore: .600″, Piston Stroke: 1.0″, Overall Height: 6.05″, Overall Length: 10″ All of our plans projects are machined from metal bar stock (supplied by you, the builder) and no castings are required. This is the lowest cost way for you to build as the metals can usually be purchased from metal salvage yards for around $2.00 or so per pound for aluminum, brass and stainless steel. But as can be seen, most of the model engines are designed to look like they were in fact made from castings instead of rectangular blocks and round bars of metal. High precision machining is required. Experience building other types of engines from scratch is suggested.You will need a lathe and a milling machine with the usual tooling items. You will need a horizontal/vertical rotary table for your mill if you want to duplicate the visual design aspects of some of the projects – spoked flywheels, fluted columns etc., but the engines will operate just as well without those features. Please note – we do not have any ready to run engines or bolt together engine kits for sale. The plans are for model engines – the engines can be scaled to any size, but no claims of suitability for practical power generation are made. The Plans Set drawings are high quality computer generated drawings using a professional CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and printed on 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheets with a laser printer. This permits you to insert them in plastic sheet protectors so they won’t get soiled as you use them in the shop. Dimensions are in U.S. inch decimals – no fractions – which makes it easy for you to change the scale of your model to suit your machine tool capacity or the materials you have on hand or have access to. Multiply dimensions by 25.4 to obtain millimeter dimensions. NOTE: If you want your plans right away, send us a message with your email address and we will email you a link to download a PDF of the plans. If you are successful in downloading, we will cancel mailing of the hard copy and refund 80% of the eBay shipping cost. We are the owners of this copyrighted material. Sale or giving away our plans is strictly prohibited!

Plans to build the Howell V-Twin 4-Cycle Gas Engine This is a V-Twin engine that is machined entirely from bar stock. It has no prototype as it is entirely my own design. Being a single crank pin 90 degree engine, it is extremely smooth and vibration free. V type engines other than 90 degree can not be balanced except with special balancer shafts, etc. that you wouldn’t want! Witness the vibrating 45 degree motorcycle engines…… The engine is a long stroke, moderate speed design which provides plenty of torque. A robust cooling system allows the engine to run indefinitely with a load and never overheat. Cylinders are of cast iron. Crankshaft is steel. Most of the rest of the engine is of aluminum alloy. Knife and fork aluminum alloy connecting rod ends operate on a single hardened crank pin. This configuration produces an interesting exhaust sound! An internal oil pump ensures that lots of oil gets to all the internal moving parts. The crankcase holds two ounces of oil. The engine is equipped with ball bearings on all rotating shafts. A sheet metal shroud on each cylinder/head directs cooling air from a pair of belt driven fans. Dual 2-Jet Throttles have oiled foam air cleaners. The valve rocker arms have ball bearing rollers on the valve stem end and clevises with lock nuts on the push rods for valve clearance adjustment on the other end of the rocker arms. The valve train is designed so that there is no side thrust on the tappets or the rocker arms which causes undue wear on other engines. The engine operates without any oil getting on the outside due to “O” ring seals at all joints and an efficient crankcase check valve ventilation system which maintains negative crankcase air pressure. The ignition system is twin Hall sensor and twin TIM-6 electronic ignition modules and two model engine coils operating on 6 volts. Each cylinder is treated as a separate engine and this precludes the need for a distributor. The spark advance/retard is easily adjusted during operation. Spark plugs are the low cost 10mm NGK CM-6. This is NOT a beginners project, but anyone who is particular about his work, has built a few other successful internal combustion engines and has a 7 inch or larger lathe and a milling machine with a 6 inch rotary table should not have any problems building this engine. Besides just being a nice engine to have and operate, this engine would be great fun on a bicycle or in a radio controlled boat, car, tank, etc.! This is a small “real world” industrial quality engine capable of doing “long hours” of hard work. My engine operates all day long at shows driving a generator and is stopped only long enough for refueling. The plans include all engine features in the photos (except the mounting rails) including the throttles, cooling fans and air shrouds, plus an ignition system schematic diagram and timing gear cutting charts. The quality CAD generated and laser printed plans set consists of 41 sheets of drawings and 3 sheets of construction notes.Specifications: Flywheel Diameter: 4″, Cylinder Bore: 1″, Piston Stroke: 1-1/4″, Compression Ratio: 5:1, Displacement: 1.96 C.I. (32cc), RPM Range: 800 – 4,500, Height: 6.9″, Width: 8.3″, Length: 5.8″All of our plans projects are machined from metal bar stock (supplied by you, the builder) and no castings are required. This is the lowest cost way for you to build as the metals can usually be purchased from metal salvage yards for around $2.00 or so per pound for aluminum, brass and stainless steel. But as can be seen, most of the model engines are designed to look like they were in fact made from castings instead of rectangular blocks and round bars of metal. High precision machining is required. Experience building other types of engines from scratch is suggested.You will need a lathe and a milling machine with the usual tooling items. You will need a horizontal/vertical rotary table for your mill if you want to duplicate the visual design aspects of some of the projects – spoked flywheels, fluted columns etc., but the engines will operate just as well without those features. Please note – we do not have any ready to run engines or bolt together engine kits for sale. The plans are for model engines – the engines can be scaled to any size, but no claims of suitability for practical power generation are made.The Plans Set drawings are high quality computer generated drawings using a professional CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and printed on 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheets with a laser printer. This permits you to insert them in plastic sheet protectors so they won’t get soiled as you use them in the shop. Dimensions are in U.S. inch decimals – no fractions – which makes it easy for you to change the scale of your model to suit your machine tool capacity or the materials you have on hand or have access to. Multiply dimensions by 25.4 to obtain millimeter dimensions. NOTE: If you want your plans right away, send us a message with your email address and we will email you a link to download a PDF of the plans. If you are successful in downloading, we will cancel mailing of the hard copy and refund 80% of the eBay shipping cost. We are the owners of this copyrighted material. Sale or giving away our plans is strictly prohibited!

Plans to build a Miser Low Temp Stirling Cycle EngineThe Miser engine type is the best conversation piece ever invented. It will run on a cup of warm coffee, the warmth of your hand, or even an ice cream cone! Here is an engine that you can actually operate in bed with no danger of setting the sheets on fire!This modified Heinrici stirling cycle engine doesn’t need a fire to operate it. It has no valves, ignition system, carburetor, or exhaust. It will run on any heat source such as on top of a cup of warm water (coffee), from the heat of a light bulb if placed on top of a lamp shade, in full sunlight, on a TV, VCR, and a zillion other sources. It runs at about 90 RPM when held in the palm of a hand and much faster with the other heat sources. It will also operate in reverse from a cold source such as ice or snow. As can be seen, the possibilities are almost endless.Folks who are not ordinarily interested in engines of any kind are always curious about this one. Unlike other low temperature engines, I designed Miser to actually look like an engine! Isn’t that a novel idea! It is not as hard to build as it may look, but you can simplify the styling if you are in a hurry to get yours running.Miser is built mostly from aluminum alloy bar stock and plate, while most of the smaller parts are of brass or steel. A few parts that can’t be metal because they need to be good heat insulators are made from clear acrylic (so the works can be seen) or delrin. The HTF (Hard-To-Find) Materials Kit below contains the needed materials that may be difficult for most builders to obtain otherwise. They would also cost more when obtained from separate multiple sources even if the minimum order amount was not a problem. The plans are also available separately – see below. The plans set consists of 10 sheets of quality laser printed CAD drawings and 2 sheets of construction and assembly notes.Specifications: Flywheel Diameter: 5.2″, Cylinder Bore: .600″, Piston Stroke: .625″, Overall Height: 7.4″ All of our plans projects are machined from metal bar stock (supplied by you, the builder) and no castings are required. This is the lowest cost way for you to build as the metals can usually be purchased from metal salvage yards for around $2.00 or so per pound for aluminum, brass and stainless steel. But as can be seen, most of the model engines are designed to look like they were in fact made from castings instead of rectangular blocks and round bars of metal. High precision machining is required. Experience building other types of engines from scratch is suggested.You will need a lathe and a milling machine with the usual tooling items. You will need a horizontal/vertical rotary table for your mill if you want to duplicate the visual design aspects of some of the projects – spoked flywheels, fluted columns etc., but the engines will operate just as well without those features. Please note – we do not have any ready to run engines or bolt together engine kits for sale. The plans are for model engines – the engines can be scaled to any size, but no claims of suitability for practical power generation are made.The Plans Set drawings are high quality computer generated drawings using a professional CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and printed on 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheets with a laser printer. This permits you to insert them in plastic sheet protectors so they won’t get soiled as you use them in the shop. Dimensions are in U.S. inch decimals – no fractions – which makes it easy for you to change the scale of your model to suit your machine tool capacity or the materials you have on hand or have access to. Multiply dimensions by 25.4 to obtain millimeter dimensions. NOTE: If you want your plans right away, send us a message with your email address and we will email you a link to download a PDF of the plans. If you are successful in downloading, we will cancel mailing of the hard copy and refund 80% of the eBay shipping cost.We are the owners of this copyrighted material. Sale or giving away our plans is strictly prohibited!