Disgruntled                                                                                   

Well, I got so disgruntled with the engine that I worked on other projects for a while.

No mater how many coats of epoxy resin that I applied to the outside of the box, there were always air leaks (detected by soapy water) bubbling from multiple odd places on the sides and lid of the box. The wood is very porous to air and it lifts and splits the brittle epoxy. I have used resin reinforced by fiberglass cloth before and it is rather tedious to work with and it also leaks air if every single hole in the cloth is not completely saturated with resin. I looked around for an alternate sealing material and settled on Kevlar reinforced bed liner.

The stuff is not cheap; a quart cost me $36 !  I applied four coats of the black stuff to the sides, bottom and top lips of the box. I coated the inside of the lid as well. I now use aquarium glue and two inch screws to secure the lid.

I reworked the difficult-to-adjust regenerator rod seals to a better design using modified lamp parts. I glue one inch long, 3/8” diameter, threaded lamp tubes into the lid where the regenerator rods pass though. Then I screw on 3/8” brass lamp caps that has a hole drilled in it for the rod to pass through. An O-ring fits nicely under the cap and provides an easily adjustable air-tight seal. Am I air tight? Time to test the engine again.