Charles Bethards
and
His "Wooden" Hot Air Engines
Page 2

Everywhere you look, this double-acting engine is loaded with clever design features.
See if you can identify them as you look at the pictures.

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Note the connection between the flywheel and displacer drive: crank, connecting rod, bell crank.

If you look closely you'll see that the rocker shaft is mounted in ball bearings.

Viewed from the other side.

Note the necessity of the push-pull cable arrangement in the displacer drive.

The power cylinder connecting rod does not have a wrist pin, thus it wobbles back and forth on its trunnion. That begs a question: How did Charles connect the stationary displacer chambers to a moving cylinder?

Of course, by now you have noticed the ancestry of some of the major components. The furnaces, displacer chambers and cooling water jackets served as propane cylinders in a previous life.

Now, you are seeing a very clever design. Here is the double-acting power cylinder. Note how it is connected to the displacer chambers.

Remember, the piston wobbles about its trunnion. There are separate air passages in each end of the trunnion. The air passes through the swiveling connections: The left hand displacer connects to the bottom side of the power piston and the right displacer connects to the top of it.

Click here to go back to Page #1 of Charlie's Engines

Click here to see Charlie's Scotch drive engine

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Return to the Lewis-Clark Antique Power Club Home Page

These pages designed by Orrin B. Iseminger

Charles Bethards and His "Wooden" Hot Air Engines Page 2

Charles Bethards
and
His "Wooden" Hot Air Engines
Page 2