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<r>Graphite in glass or pyrex always works well. On the other hand, I would be interested to see how lignum vitae (<URL url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae</URL>) would hold up as a power piston. If you're determined to use wood, make sure it's s...

<t>Beautiful machine. I'd considered using a graphite displacer, but a word of caution: Graphite is brittle and has low shear strength. In a high temp. engine, you'd need to be sure that the graphite will not fail under the rpms you're spinning. I haven't done the math yet, but it seems it would be ...

<t>William is correct. The flywheel is necessary to store part of the net system energy in it's inertial moments. This is also why many alpha type engines require an initial "push" on the flywheel to get the action started. (I have seen them auto-start using magnetic repulsion, but it is a slow proc...