How I Built a 5 Hp Stirling Engine

How I Built a 5 Hp Stirling Engine by L. Merrick Lockwood. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780971391819.

Have you ever wanted a Stirling engine that could produce enough power to power your home or small business? Perhaps you would like to make your power by burning an easy to find low cost fuel. If so, you will want a copy of “How I Built a 5 Hp. Stirling Engine” by Merrick Lockwood because he built an engine that would do all that. In the 1980’s Merrick Lockwood was the leader of a team that built a five hp. (3.7 kW) Stirling engine fueled by farm garbage (in this case the garbage was rice husks). After a huge amount of work they finally got the engine running well. This book tells the story. Developing an engine of this size is a very impressive accomplishment no matter where it was done, but it’s even more impressive when you learn that Merrick and his team developed this engine under primitive conditions in Bangladesh. They even developed some advanced production techniques like underwater explosive metal forming using very large firecrackers! You’ll get the full story in this book, including a lot of great advice from the author about what worked and what didn’t work, along with his expert opinion of what is likely to work in the future. To make it easier for you to build your own version of this engine, we have included all the drawings that Mr. Lockwood still has. There isn’t quite enough technical detail to simply build an engine directly from the book. But an experienced machinist and engineer should be capable of filling in and piecing together the precise details. Commercialization of this engine or your similar design is approved and encouraged. This book is 202 pages long, soft cover with over 50 pages of drawings and illustrations. (Note: The pictures in the book are black & white.)