We came in early on Tuesday and Wednesday morning to slave over our engine... we needed to find a way to attach the metal cross bar to the needle.. and well that proved to be harder then it sounds. First of all ~ we tried bending the needle but got frightened when we had a slight chip of the needle - and seeing our history with needles this did not seem like the brightest idea - so we decided to use JB Welds, and to say the least this also failed us and proved to be even more problematic. So the JB Welds decided to not hold the cross bar in place but drip down and seal the needle in place and shut. (uh oh). So we took off the JB Welds (and accidental detached the bolt and piece of metal -- easily fixed with super glue). After this debacle we decided to use RTV (a much safer choice) and then we had to let that dry.
Oh but before we did the RTV we tried to wrap copper wire around it (because there was still a little JB Welds to hold it in place) we found out that our engine kept getting caught at this point (another big UH OH) but then we detached the metal and decided to also detached the balloon and then shift around the displacer.
So at this point all seems lost and the deadline is creeping closer - we have detached our balloon - which took all of 30 seconds to reattach (but that is besides the point). Then we moved around the displacer until it was on a smoother path - and then we attached the RTV.
After the RTV dried -- we hooked up the copper wire to the crank shaft and the wire to the balloon. Tape was our savior - we used it to attach the balloon and cooper wire and around the copper wire to make sure it did not bend. Then it was time to test the engine....
The tea candle was not enough heat so we added 7 more candles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9xM3HAD644
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