Here's something you don't see very often. Wooden engines which RUN! Charles Bethards built these and brought them over from Enterprise, Oregon to share with us. Charlie is also a first time Exhibitor at GEARS. In all three engines, Charlie constructed the displacers out of tall aluminum beverage cans. He used discarded propane cylinders -- the tall and skinny kind -- for the displacer cylinder and hot caps; he used the shorter, larger diameter propane cylinders to construct the cooling water jackets.

Charlie was raised in the oil fields of Oklahoma. Crude oil pump-jacks inspired the design for his rocking beam and cable drives.

The oak engine on the right has two displacer cylinders and a double-acting power cylinder. Note that the air connections to the power cylinder must swivel. The air passes through the trunnion.