Will this Plastic Steam Engine work? Cheap Chinese Tat!
12,668
Published 2024-05-04
Today Lawrie has been sent another steam engine from across the seas.
But, it appears to be made of plastic. Surely this won't work?
A video shot, featuring, and edited by Lawrie
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All Comments (21)
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I read "plastic steam engine" and my first thought was "Yup, this isn't gonna work".
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That boiler is just a tuna can with a steam outlet.
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I like that Lawrie is slowly becoming the Ashens of steam engine tat.
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i love how the box says 'exploring kid'.. more like 'exploding kid' at this point lol
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I notice that the box said "Science Museum approved" as though some bona fide museum had tried it out and approved it as an educational engine. I doubt one of those engines has been anywhere near a science museum!
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Etailers need to be held accountable for distributing dangerous products, let alone simply scammy ones.
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I am astonished it moved at all. You were brave to run it indoors!
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It’s broken Lawrie’s voice into another octave 😂
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One thing you probably could’ve tried is graphite, just drawn on all the friction surfaces with a soft pencil to lubricate!
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It's an educational product in how not to design a steam engine. Probably best to only run in on air pressure, the heat from the steam is likely affecting the plastic cylinders.
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This is a steam engine using period correct technology that precisely meets the safety standards of Victorian times.
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Inner monologue plays "Red sun in the sky" as Lawrie goes through this marvel of Chinese engineering.
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Lawrie what you're looking at is the steam powered land mine, works in the dark even (to that tin can boiler) also if you ran it without the dynamo, it would have less drag so maybe it would work better
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To get it to run better, pull out the red LED and replace it with a battery 😂
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It's hard to believe these come from a part of the world where they were the last to get rid of steam locomotives (although they still use coal powered steam power to generate electricity for homes and cars)
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Lawrie, keep the boiler and use on your railway, the engine use as a wagon load, or paint it rust colour and put it in a scrap yard?
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Twin single-action steam engines are usually set up with the piston stroke 180° out of phase with one another (rather than the 90° common on dual-action pistons). Looking at where it would stop each time, I suspect this is a large factor given the lack of flywheel. As they share a common crank, having the cylinders exactly opposite should work much better.
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I doubt theres any "sweet spots"... Plastic expands awfully when hot, making any kind of fine-tuning invalid as soon as the temperature changes a few degrees.
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That kit 'could' be considered a crime against humanity...:face-orange-biting-nails: Thank you for the video. Cheers from So.Ca.USA 3rd House On the Left
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The boiler reminds me of the combined boiler and engine on a pop pop boat, Maybe it can be turned into a large pop pop boat? Here is a suggestion: Toss away the cylinders, fill the boiler with water and put a tube to both outlets and put them into water and figure out if it creates thrust. If that does not work and it is not too much bother, try shortening the boiler using solder, perhaps a smaller size will enable the rapid expansion that drives the pop pop boat.
