Originally, this was supposed to become a flame eater engine which I had found
on the Roy Ricewebsite.
It was not the timing mechanism connected to the flywheel that proved
troublesome, but the lack of graphite to manufacture the piston -- my cast iron
piston kept rusting... And I had no intent of disassembling the engine for
maintenance after each run. The end of the flame eater came when I ended up
dismantling it completely, reusing the cylinder (the first one I had completely
built by myself!) for another Stirling model, a larger version of Christer
Carlson's engine. The idea of building a flame eater is still in my mind,
especially since I located a vendor for graphite.