gem-stone-oscillating engine

Stolen Art No.8 A Oscillating Steam Engine made entirely out of gem material.

The Art piece was stolen from Shurgard Maastricht Noord whilst in their safe area.
This is an oscillating steam engine that I made entirely out of gem stone material.
Namely:
Canadian jade, Jasper. Sugalite, Desiccated jasper, Brazilian quartz, Rose quartz, Smoky quartz
Onyx, Lapis lazuli, Grossular garnet, Beryl ( aquamarine), Botswana agate,
About 350 hours build time.

I use Hxtal resin to join everything together..

HERE is the only video I have of it running. Sorry, the video is a bit wobbly.

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First I drilled the cylinder into the quartz.

I use a diamond core drill in my drill press. Softly.
I use some office putty on top so that I can make a dam of lubricant.
Afterward, I ream the cylinder out with a flex shaft sanding mandrel, using 220, 600, 1200 wet or dry sand paper with water as lubricant.
The final polish is done with a flex shaft felt buff charged with 50,000 grit diamond and oil.

The piece of Sugilite.
This material I bought from the Wessels mine in the Northern Cape in South Africa.
It is near a place called Hotazhell ( no kidding)

I turned out a quartz rod for the main cylinder pivot.
Turned might be the wrong term. I ground it out on a 220 grit diamond lap and then the 1200 grit lap to give it a satin finish.

So here is the finished cylinder with the rose quartz pivot and the sugilite piston fitted in to see if everything slides in and out smoothly.
I glued a temporary top on the cylinder made of grossular garnet.
Later, I replaced that with a faceted aquamarine.
In retrospect, I think the garnet looked better.

I cut a piece of jade for the main cross beam and drilled a hole into it.

I made the crank shaft out of laminated sugilite and garnet which I carved into a cabochon. The con rod is made out of red jasper.

The various components prior to being joined.

Putting everything together to see if it actually turns and to see whether the stroke was the correct length. So this is top dead center.

And this is bottom dead center.

Making the fly wheel. This took a fuck ton of effort and in retrospect I should have made it out of a softer mineral. You learn.

There was no real way that I could join the flywheel to the drive shaft and then be able to remove it. If I used Hxtal resin it would be absolutely be impossible to remove without breaking it, so I made a square woodruff key, like normal steel flywheels are attached.

I made the actual key out of jade, because it is not prone to shattering under stress.

I grooved the slot out with a long diamond burr.

The other side of the drive shaft went through a piece of jade.
A tube of quartz that slipped over the shaft held the wheel in place.

I ground a grossular garnet washer to hold the cylinder in place on the other end.

Now came the air intake. The air ( or steam if one wanted) would run up the joined together lapis lazuli and jasper pieces. Each had a half round groove ground into a side.
So when the two were joined together, it would effectively form a tube.
The jade would also have a receiving groove the led to the input stream for the quartz cylinder.

So the air would flow from the jasper into the jade and then into the cylinder.

The white arrows indicate the air flow direction.

The other side. Both columns are reinforced with stainless steel pins that are drilled up into each one of them through the base of jade.

My super duper high tech equipment.

Pre final assembly.

Just checking if the entire contraption turns smoothly.
Because there is absolutely no flex with stone, all the components had to be installed very precisely. Even the slightest deviation would cause one or other component to fail catastrophically. In other words, make a new one.

Bottom dead center. The base took a long time to polish before final assembly.

Showing to top exhaust port. This would get a silver tube inserted later.

I had to pre fit all the components endlessly with a removable glue, because once the resin was used it was not possible to take anything apart with out breaking it.

Side ways pre finish.

The following are boutique pictures.
The cylinder head is an Aquamarine I cut especially for the purpose, but as I said, I think the greed jade would have worked better.

I was at the stage when the pivot shaft had to be trimmed off, but unfortunately the Dutch criminals stole it from me first.

Just showing a size comparison against my delicate ballerina hands.