Honey, I Shrunk the Steam Engine

Mike machines a tiny steam engine, measuring about 5 mm long.

[chronovaengineering]

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[sdrc]

World's first steam powered watch?

[timoteiNitrogen]

Bro just causally went to his fucking scanning electron microscope, standard shop equipment

[martinfisker]

Making a motorcycle for an ant is pretty cool, but honestly having a wife who made a steam engine is the biggest flex of this video

[Simple_But_Expensive]

Having been a steam engineer most of my life, I am astonished. Truly impressive work. It may be the smallest steam engine on the planet. Call Guinness!

[DallasG]

One day, ants will build statues of this man for helping them industrialize their colonies.

[nixie]

"WHAT IS THIS, A STEAM ENGINE FOR ANTS?!?!"
"Yes"
"Oh..."

[somethingelse]

In the early 90's I read an article in (I believe) Model Aviation magazine about an elderly watchmaker immigrant in NYC who made a bunch of multi cylinder CO2 engines so small you could fit the collection inside a Contac capsule. The article included pictures or I wouldn't have believed it. A working 5 cylinder CO2 engine about 3 mm wide. I was never able to find anything about him on the internet. Machining super tiny machines is amazing to me

[custos]

Don't forget, you don't have to go bigger, you can also go more dense. An osmium flywheel would've been interesting to say the least.

[MatchaMakesThings]

Ah yes putting it under the Electron Micron microscope to figure out the issue XD.

Lovely build. Really pushing the limits!

[sidneydawe]

I am a retired toolmaker. When I was 17 and an apprentice at the Royal Aircraft Establishment I made a twin oscillating cylinder steam engine with a 1/8'' bore and 1/4'' stroke. I connected it to a high pressure air line and it ran like the clappers. Great fun and satisfaction for a teenager. Thanks for the upload. Great video.

[JamieBainbridge]

The scale of this didn't become apparent until I saw the gigantic toothbrush at 10:05

[barneszhun]

This isn't even machining anymore, it is pure art at this minature scale!

[akaHarvesteR]

I know watchmakers make tiny tings, but holy hell, this is _ridiculously_ small!

My jaw dropped from the thumbnail already (hah, pun retroactively intended)

[ian-c.]

I remember making one of those oscillating engines in school over 50 years ago as an introduction to machining, I really enjoyed the process !
You make it look fairly straightforward but it's difficult to get a sense of scale on a large screen, drilling the match head at the end put it into perspective nicely !

“This is the larger version my wife Hazel made several years ago”
I’m lucky myself having a wife who shares and appreciates some of my interests but this just another level :)

[LafayetteSystems]

The design and precision machining at this scale is incredible!

[GeorgeD]

I don't think it came through very clearly on video, but anyone who's held a 0.3 mm drill bit knows how incredibly tiny it is! I have one and I can't imagine how they are even produced...

[tymz-r-achangin]

Easily got my thumbs up! No stupid music, got to hear the sounds from the processes, and very interesting content to follow along with whereby anticipating the progress. Thank you for sharing the video

[ratcrib]

17:11 @theslowmoguys need to film this