Several people have built the Siamese Twins from my plans, and this is a source of great satisfaction to me. Here are pictures of some of these machines:
Ricardo Vituzzo - December 2001
Ricardo Vituzzo of Sao Paulo, Brazil, did a great job with the Siamese Twins. Here are a parts breakdown and the completed machine. I was impressed with the workmanship that went into it, and happy that he chose my design to build his first steam engine.
John Parrot - February 2002
Here's one from John Parrot (locaton unknown), based on the Siamese Twins but changed to accommodate the materials he had on hand, as well as his preference for a vertically-oriented engine. John's design has inspired me to think about an engine similar to this but back to a single cylindar block. It will be double-acting, with the pistons only 90 degrees out of phase instead of 180 degrees. Hopefully this will make it self-starting.
That's the beaurty of this hobby. I come up with an engine design, John changes parts of it to fit his needs, effectively creating a new design, and I build another new design based on his, etc. By the time we're finished with this, we may have a steam-powered jet engine!
Today the Shop -- tomorrow the World!
Craig Young -- January 2003
Craig Young, of Lucas, Texas, built this beauty as his second steam engine project. His first one was Brassy Babe, pictured elsewhere on this site. Craig made several improvements on my design -- things I wish I'd thought of. For one, he put ball bearings in the bearing blocks instead of the zinc sleeve bearings I used. Probably this has reduced friction in this area. And he put a round cover on each cylinder instead of the single plate I used. The bolt pattern is an attractive addition. Craig plans to replace the plastic tubing with copper, and put bolt-on flanges where the tubing attaches to the cylinders, to allow him to remove the plumbing for future timing adjustments. This will be a great modification if he wants to change direction of the engine and needs to retune it. Somewhere along the line after building my Twins I replaced the plastic tubing with copper because the plastic cooled the steam to water before it entered the engine. Plastic is ok if you're going to run on compressed air only, but doesn't work for steam.
Allan Dobler -- May 2004
Allan Dobler just completed his version of the Siamese Twins, pictured below, It continues to amaze me how people embellish my plans to come up with a better version. For example, Allan used R/C car bearings in all rotating parts, greatly reducing friction. The backplate for the cylinders, with its bolt hole pattern and SH screws, is impressive. Allan tells me his engine runs nicely on 2 psi compressed air. Nice job, Allan!
You can see more of Allan's work at --
http://members.shaw.ca/aldobler
 |
 |
John Bennett -- December 2004
 |
John Bennett, of Brandon, Mississippi, built this vertical version of the Siamese Twins for his grandson. The two uprights holding the cylinder are each milled from a single piece of aluminum. Bore is 1/2". Cylinders are aluminum, with brass pistons. The engine runs smoothly at 5 psi. Much of the engine was built from scrap pieces of a junked truck, so John added the image of the Mack bulldog to the cylinder. I think it adds class to an already classy job. John's grandson is a very lucky boy. |
Dan Haworth - July, 2006
Dan Haworth, of Nashville, TN, sent me these pictures of his Siamese Twins. He doubled the bore to 1" and made the stroke 0.9", effectively doubling the power capability of the engine -- assuming he has enough steam or air capacity to fully power it. Nice job, Dan!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Rick Kerr, February 2007
Rick Kerr, from Punxsutawney PA, made his own version with different materials than those called for in my plans. Just goes to show that nothing is locked in concrete. He did a great job, and documented its construction at --
Note his improvement of my valve. My design allowed backlash of steam, degrading engine perfomance. His design eliminates that problem. I had discovered the problem a couple of years ago, and made the same change he made. I thought I had updated the plans to show the improved valve, but I must have forgotten to do that. If I can find the originals of my plans, I'll make that correction -- someday ...
