Does this 2,000 Year Old Steam Engine Work? 

If curious, you can view the full tech tree image here: www.patreon.com/posts/bringing-back-110303882

A couple thousand years ago at a Greek temple, you could burn a sacrifice on an altar. It would heat a hidden kettle and out the spout would come steam that condensed into water. The water as weight into a hanging pot would pull on a spindle string with a second string wrapped around it. The pulled second string would open a door to reveal the stone version of the god being petitioned. Once you could see the god was favoring you by revealing himself, you knew it was time to pay the priest for your prayer being answered.

Clickspring is doing a version of “how did they do that” by building the Antikythera mechanism parts using hand tools. The ancient people were pretty clever as you are proving!

This experiment shows that there's a huge difference between theory and practice. Things look simple in theory, but tremendously hard in real-life experiments.

Hey, I make copper vessels often (pots and cups), you could make molds or dies to help but a technique called raising is probably going to be your best bet as it allows you to make many different sizes and shapes for your vessels. You will need a raising and plannishing hammer, as well as a stake for raising, but compared to other methods its much cheaper and versatile.

For the copper hemispheres - you can try to do die molding, essentially make a negative of the part you want in wood and press it to shape (or hammer it into shape, that would probably be easier with the tech you have accessible). You could also try blow molding - essentially take 2 copper sheets, solder them together with one inlet, then pressurize the living hell out of it to "swell" the sides out

Major tip when soldering : getting the metal to melt is NOT enough, thats the bare minimum. the surrounding metal needs to be heated up more, for "wetting" action, to absorb itself into the crack. needs more flux also. but the heat was mainly lacking. and precision/patience.

I love this man.. Ingenuity: 9.2 Creativity: 8.5 Knowledge: 10 Craftsmanship: 0.00001

I think my biggest problem with the aeolipile is that it sprays steam everywhere. Imagine having a more refined higher pressure version of this thing working at a factory or on a ship. You would never be able to go anywhere near the thing because it would kill you or seriously burn you instantly. So essentially you’d have to build reinforced walls around it to protect people from the scolding high pressure steam spewing out of it and because of that you wouldn’t be able to check on it while it’s running. That may not sound like much of a problem but imagine you’re a worker at a power plant and the thing starts having problems but you can’t turn it off to check it lest you cause a citywide blackout. Not to mention that it also makes it more bulky which isn’t that big a problem in stationary uses but if you want to power a ship or a train with this then you’ll have to sacrifice a lot of precious space and weight for that shield. With cylinders or a normal turbine the exhaust steam is contained and you can use a funnel to direct it somewhere safe. Edit: you could also try a regular steam turbine with blades. It’s essentially just the same as a waterwheel or windmill but using steam instead of water and wrapping it in a container to prevent steam from escaping.

You should make a poster of that tech tree

i think what you are really missing for a lot of your projects is a lathe that is actually useful. maybe you could retry that?

That torch is WAAAAAAAAAAAY too small to solder on that big of a heat sink. Like trying to fill a hot air balloon with a desk fan.

For soldering especially those small parts like the nozzles, flux both parts and start to heat evenly. Near the end of your heat go to only 1 side of the pipe and heat there for a couple seconds. Remove the flame from work area and with solder on the opposite side you heated tap the joint with the solder. You should see it melt and pull towards the hotter side. Dont do a lot of solder less is more 👌

I believe the reason the last one isn’t creating much power is your heat source isn’t hot enough. The steam looks weak, like it doesn’t *really* want to spray out. I’d make sure you have the heat ripping, then put it on the heat. It also seems like you need to consider the piping size - bigger gives heat loss (steam pressure loss) but also gets large volumes up to the top.

This channel is just a highlight of the utter tenacity of our species.

Next time you try to make a round hemisphere, weld two plates to one another with a sealed connection to one of the plates, then use a long tube, to safely compress the interior of the plates with either water or steam. This is called "Hydroforming" and would have been available at the time. They used large pumps with weights and manual force driven via leverage to compress water to attain nearly perfect spheres.

Hero of Alexandria was such a goat. Bro made a tutorial on how to make robots (automatons) that are powered by seeds or sand.

I'm pretty sure an Aeolipile would be low-pressure steam, and low-pressure steam engines need to be rather large to get any useful amount of power from them.

My guess for the inspiration for steam engines: 1. Having the top of a pot fly off when it boils. a. you are clever and you see how it could be used to push b. the cover is too small for the pot (on purpose for a cooking technique or all you have or shrinkage in the manufacturing process) 2. You are making tea and add some plant material that is the same diameter as the spout. A piece gets stuck and eventually rockets itself out 3. A leaf falls from the tree over your boiling water and flies away. 4. Your clothing/leaves gets lifted by the fire. But the fire can't be contained. Water can. Or the boiling water lifts your clothes (could this dry them without burning?). Whatever the inspiration, the idea is that you can see that steam can push. So now you can make a hammer or ram. But now the problem is, you have to reset the ram after each push. So push it back with another ram! But then the other ram would have to be on the opposite side of the first ram - meaning you need another boiler. So: add a pivot! Place two rams next to each other with a rod connecting them on the end and a pivot point in the middle. Now, when one ram pushes forward, it moves the other ram back, and vise vera. But then how do you connect the two rams to one boiler? Because the steam will push both at the same time. So you need a one-way valve so that the steam only fills one ram at a time. But that only operates when the ram is extended to a certain position. So you have to put the valve in the ram. Thus we get the steam cylinder! Or, looking back to having one ram on the opposite of another ram, you could see that you need to get the steam to then push the cylinder back and so you need to contain the cylinder and have the steam get pushed around behind it somehow to push it back.

1. you don't need a sphere in the rotor. just one cross branch is enough. 2. Maybe try to put the rotor horizontal and reduce the distance to the boiler. This and no sphere should reduce heat loss after the boiler. 3. Longer cross tubes in the rotor provide more torque. 4. The kettle needs to get hotter. Either more fire or a better exchange from the fire. In steam locomotives, for example, the exhaust gases were passed through the boiler in pipes.

Bruh, just watch one tutorial on how to solder copper, please man, it's like you've never even seen someone do it. Why are you using a cigar lighter to solder large copper parts? Just go get a $30 plumbing torch, your little candle flame will not get the parts hot enough. If you ever want your joints to stick, you have to clean them first with some sand paper or steel wool before trying to solder them. You need to apply flux paste to the surfaces otherwise they will oxidize immediately upon heating, and you need to heat the joint up to temperature then remove the flame and apply solder to the hot joint. You cant have the flame on the solder wire, because it will just melt it into balls that wont want to wet the copper surface. 1. Clean until it shines, 2. Flux everywehre, 3. Heat the joint with a bigger torch, 4. Remove the flame 5. Apply the solder wire to the joint. If the solder wire doesn't melt immediately when it touches the copper, you didnt get it hot enough.

So about the ending and steam engine working in "reverse", no they don't, the one you specifically refer to yes and it's called Newcommen Atmospheric Engine because it's the atmosphere to impress more force when the water jet cools the steam off; but that's an horrendously inefficient engine because, among other reasons, you're constantly cooling and reheting the cylinder (all wasted energy) so soon enough the most used steam engine was the one using the espansion of the steam in a cylinder. Than it evolved in double and triple expansion and, also quite soon, a condenser was added which yes it does create a vacuum and gain efficiency but still the steam expanding does more than the vacuum, also locomotives for example (except for rare cases) didn't have condesers, they were used just in stationary applications or ships

@2:15 To be real, his versions of Hero’s engine use bearings which were obviously not around 2000 years ago.

For your final steam engine, you can still use your lathe for the parts, just not on metal. I suggest making the shapes for the parts out of beeswax on the lathe, and making a mold with them. Then, you can just pour molten brass into the mold, and presto! Engine parts!

Something that could be interesting for this channel would be to showcase some in-between stages in technology. The exploration of the in-between-stages that aren't commonly known could showcase failed attempts and projects that ultimately led to technological advancements

That first really eatly steam engine used vacuum, but the more modern engines didn''t really have steam cooling. There was a prototype steam car in the 70s that made steam and cooled it in a closed loop. That first steam engine using vacuum actually was used to pump water out of mines I think.

That 'wobble' as it spins indicates that the spinning part isn't straight, that could be making your whole device much less efficient due to the spindle having a tendency to stay in the lowest position; if it were straighter it could start easier and possibly generate more power with less vibrations

I was thinking of pressure testing this device when I realized what may be your "different principle" to maximize output power. Using pascal's law, you can apply a small force onto a small area into a fluid-filled volume, output to a larger area, and maximize the power by the ratio of the small area to the large one. Still reciprocating, which is a detriment to modern efficiency, but that could wildly multiply output power in a simpler machine!

With modern engineering, this is so easy! Like, still so underpowered, but so much easier than what you had to work with. I really feel for you trying so hard and so long to get this to work! In ancient times, this was someone's life's work, taking the already improved concept, improving it tenfold, and still not getting it to be useful!

What in the actual hell?! You made all of those wood tools and didn't bother to carve a hemisphere plug into a chunk of wood. Also you can test with compressed air.

You need to start having a helping hand build things. Doing it alone is not how they did it. They had apprentices! You could have used the older soldering method if you just had someone else to hold the heat and stuff to assemble. Great job by the way, that looks amazing.

I'm very interested to see how the more advanced steam engine turns out. I hope that y'all devote at least a handful of episodes to it. I'm guessing y'all will try to do something interesting with it, and I'm holding it for a basic steam locomotive, but that is another big step beyond a base steam engine.

Heron invented the water pump, the musical organ, the syringe, pneumatic valves in his book Pneumatica (it is the origin of the term "Pneumatics"). His steam engine uses a thrust bearing on one side. The other pipe , the one steam flows through, I assume uses leather for seal.

this is the best channel of this type because you never cheat or take shortcuts, you do all the work

you should start working more on precision. the technologies you want to work toward require metrology, flat reference surfaces and concentric round features. grinding a surface plate using the three plate method and establishing a system of measurement would let you build better wood and metal structures by being able to actually make a flat surface, a straight line and a right angle. at that point, you make a screw, which can be done using drawn wire, which can be used to bootstrap a more precise screw on a primitive metal lathe. with a precision screw, you can make a screwcutting lathe and modern machinery is in reach. but first you need a surface plate

Hey a huge tip for soldering copper. Get the joint hot not where you want the solder to melt. For example if you wanted to solder the two halves together its best to heat both sides you want joined and not the gap where the solder will go. Once the copper is hot enough capillary action will suck the solder into the joint sealing it and holding it so it wont drip solder inside of the construction. Another tip is use little solder, it takes a lot less than it appears if the joints meet up with each other well. You want there to be almost no gap in the solder area between materials. good way to practice is to make a flat rectangle into a pipe and solder it just like you did in video except smaller! best of luck, love your channel

I've spent a lot of time thinking about things you could invent soon. They don't all help to lead to the steam engine, but I'd like to see them anyway. A spinning wheel, and maybe then a spinning jenny. Different types of looms might be cool, too. Maybe printed fabrics (that should be fairly easy). Windmill A rolling mill for making sheets of metal. Much better than hammering by hand every time. Some agricultural stuff, especially a Jethro Tull seed drill. Maybe a treadle-powered thresher. Horsecollar (you can rent a horse). A small sailboat you can use to test different types of sails. Gears of various types. You don't have to use them for anything at first. Just try out different ideas until you get good enough, then you'll already know how to make them for future projects. Also springs, and valves, and screws, and other machine parts you might need later. More chemistry stuff. I've loved the ones you've done so far. More glassworking. Try to do lenses if you can. Blast furnace and cast iron. China invented it in the 5th Century BC. It should be within your capabilities. You haven't done a food episode in a long time. Maybe you could do salami since you have good saltpetre now. Random inventions that don't matter much for technological progress, but which might be fun and unexpected. I recently read about how linoleum is made. It sounds surprisingly easy.

This looks amazing! With how fiddly it is to get that rotating joint airtight, it's even more amazing that this was developed so long ago!

Looking up a old craft called "Metal Spinning:, I found out it has its roots before 1400 BC. Egyptians used a hand powered version to spin gold and silver into the shapes you need. Something to look into, and is almost a forgotten craft now.

As a guy that solders for a living you may have picked the most difficult thing to solder for your first attempt, a copper sphere. We'd have issues making one of these at work and we have a machine shop and build lab equipment. Honestly, well done.

big soldering irons are often better than a torch for that type of work. there is the oldschool style where its just a block of copper at the end of an iron rod with a wooden handle, they are heated up with charcoal or propane and they usualy come in a pair so you can solder continuously. google antique tinsmith soldering iron for inspiration

I like that you actually pronounce soldering a reasonable way and dont fall it sodder

To make a sphere, either make a mould for it or possibly make a rough sphere, seal it with water inside and heat it up to use steam pressure to round it off. :).

fantastic channel and concept, as always

I’m glad you’re getting back to the series but I don’t think you have to end at the steam engine! Work your way to the Information Age! Build. A small fission reactor that’d be awesome!

Nice job! Looks like the issues with making the aeolipile do useful work are just getting the tolerances dialed in.

I was expectong some conspiracy theory stuff but im glad the guy kept it all grounded and was talking about his own experimentation

That's what's missing. With just a little more effort you could have a separately-fired 'superheater' and make 'superheated steam' and that would have yielded a more impressive result. This is how steam engines and turbines actually work but you need to be extra careful playing around with high pressure superheated steam. I cannot stress enough ⚠ Be safe but keep these uploads coming!

Great video, love the journey :D Will u use the steam engine at the end of the road map for any future projects ? (your own train or electricity powerplant)

Combining the turbine and boiler into one unit would make it much easier to produce meaningful work, or less difficult. Earliest version of "modern" steam engines utilized the vacuum, that is, the reduced pressure relative to atmospheric when the steam condensed, but for a long time using the pressure of the steam, above atmospheric, just releasing the steam into ambient air was the norm. Either way, if you only use vacuum or pressure, you're loosing a lot of potential energy. But if you have to choose, it's easier to get high power density and efficiency with really high temperatures and the pressure above atmospheric.

Great to see the struggle getting it to work honestly. I'm sure a bunch of people tried this through the centuries, so you're re-creating their struggle.

I noticed that you kept trying to align two separate tubes to make the axis, but that could've been easily fixed by using a single tube that goes all the way through. If you were using that tube to feed in steam, just drill a hole in the middle of the tube and make sure that hole ends up on the interior. Anyways, the point is that it's a whole lot easier to start out with a single straight tube rather than trying to join two smaller straight tubes with a sphere in the middle.

Hopefully this doesn't come off as hate for what you're doing here, but a number of your recent projects have suffered massively from a lack of precision parts. You've needed to make your own metal lathe for some time now and I really don't think you'll have much success moving forward without one. If you could get something like a Gingery lathe together it could improve the precision of your work by orders of magnitude. ❤

Thinking if the sphere was held in a vertical position, it would work better..?

I think it's important that the side supports aren't pressure pinching in towards the middle, which can cause the ball to not spin & mess with the friction

If you’re having trouble with leaving metal you should check out Clickspring’s videos on building the Antikythera Mechanism with ancient tools. You could probably make all of the tools he has made.

the thing is to get any work from high pressure steam you need precisely milled joints. And you can't get those without powered metal lathes. Which themselves require a whole ton of logistics in order to first even make them work and then to make them economically viable enough to be perfected enough to become useful. You don't need steam power to get metal lathes, you can use water power. People were milling out the barrels of cannons for a century or two before the steam engine became a thing. But the beauty of the early steam engines was that they used low pressure steam, so didn't need any parts finer or more precisely milled than a cannon barrel. Just a big chunky cylinder and a plunger, and the imperfect gap between could be sealed with wet cloth, just like the gap between the cannon barrel and the ball could be sealed by wadding. But ultimately, there was no economic incentive to even invent a mill big and crewed enough to mill a cannon barrel without centuries of improvement in black powder technology. So without the metallurgy and milling tech required for guns there would have been no tech base capable of building low pressure condensing steam engines. Let alone high pressure engines that were in any way useful. That's often the reason big technological advances happen when they do. Because you need logistics chains created to support entirely separate technologies and the need for the next technology to come together in the same place at the same time to support the creation and utilisation of a new tech. You can have the need for a steam engine. But if no one has already invented the tools to build one that works, no steam engine will be built. And similarly you can have the tools to build a steam engine, but until a use case important enough for people to put in the time and energy comes along, still no steam engine will be built. In reality, of course, it usually takes multiple other technologies coming together in the same place at the same time, not just one

Use this to run an alternator. Steam powered phone charger is definitely within the realm of possibility for a device like this. A quick upgrade in efficiency would be to remove the pivoting steam jets and instead of the spinning central ball, use something like the Tesla turbine that leverages laminar flow to rotate the drive shaft.

I kind of want to see you build a torch. Take a look at some old ways of blowing glass with breath/bellows powered torches. I'm pretty sure you guys are at the tech level for it since the restart.

I've always thought about these as the water being already inside the sphere, so no need for the pipework: they become axles, without anything going through them. The fire is heating the sphere directly.

Great stuff. Look up "tuck shrinking" to help you more easily make shrink sheet metal without folds or tears.

I've been watching for a long time now (bronze weapons casting) and remember the fire. I'm extremely happy you pushed through that low point. Can't wait for steam power 🚂♨️😤💨(simulated steam)

You could try needle bearings on both ends. In the steam end it would take the majority of the weight and you can make the pressure seal from a non-load-bearing material that creates less friction while providing a bit of a seal.

We're in the end game now. What a journey it's been

It's incredible how certain people just have different strengths while being so utterly incapable of certain other things and every one is different in that regard. To me i just think its incredible how someone who couldn't get into engineering school, which is not insignificant-it means they thought he was incapable of engineering-that person could argue that an engine with a worm gear reduction that puts out .01 watt of power to lift half a water bottle COULD'VE started the industrial revolution, if only people had realized it's potential... downright fascinating.

Great another episode! Thought it was a revisit after reminding us about the fire.

You need to use way more flux, you can never be too generous with it. Back in the day, they'd use rosin, which you can make yourself by melting and filtering pine tree sap. Also, idk what solder you used, but go for the classic solder (Sn60Pb40), it has a lower melting point and it sticks to stuff much better. As an added benefit, it's an easier alloy to make yourself. Double also, don't heat up the solder directly. Heat up the metal, then melt the solder on the heated surface of the metal. Triple also, butter the bread before you make the sandwich, not after. It's much easier to join 2 pieces of metal if they both already have solder on them than trying to squeeze the solder into a dry joint, especially if the pieces are large.

It seems to me that you were closer to a functional design at 8:57. With the 'globe' designs, not only are you trying to move a lot more mass (which only compounds when it's not perfectly round and balanced), but you're also adding a lot more surface area for the steam to cool down before it has a chance to exit the nozzles. If I were you, I would try insulating all non-moving parts of the contraption to retain more heat. The fact that it's all exposed copper pipe can't be doing you any favors.

I have always loved that engin. I first learned about it in middle school a long time ago and think it is the coolest thing from ancient history

If the plan is to do Thomas Newcomen engine. Originally called a steam engine, it is now considered an atmospheric engine. Since its power comes from the atmosphere and not from the steam vacuum.

Two things that would improve your soldering no end would be: 1./ Use lots of flux. Pine resin dissolved in >95% alcohol works well 2./ Let the heat do the work. Leave the heat on for longer. It takes time for the joint to whet. Bonus tip. Only use lead based solder. The unleaded stuff requires specialist equipment to work its best.

imagine how much better the quality of the recreations would be if they had a master craftsman on the team

The principle of vacuum in the modern steam engine was really only used in the first steam engines designed by Newcomen in 1712 and improved by James Watt in 1778. These were known as atmospheric steam engines. a piston was drawn up by the motion of a flywheel sucking steam from a boiler in, to start the engine the flywheel had to turned by hand or horse and a rope. Steam was under little more than atmospheric pressure so wouldn't do work when filling the cylinder. After reaching the top steam was shut of and the steam filled cylinder was then cooled by a spray of water and the steam would condense, creating a partial vacuum. Atmospheric pressure at the other side of the piston would push it down and create power. The produced power was very limited because of the very small pressure difference between the sides of the piston. Richard Trevithick designed what is considered the first real modern steam engine in 1797 that had a much better power to size ratio, using high pressure steam at more than atmospheric pressure creating power by expansion in the cylinder. Here no condensation is used or even wanted as that would decrease efficiency and even destroy the engine by water locking the piston. The high pressure steam engine was possible by that time because industrial made steel with better properties became available.

there is another pre-industrial steam engine you could attempt to do, as described by Taqi al-Din / Taqiyaddin around 1550 (either 1546 or 1551) that apparently was strong enough to spin Doner

So what's the next series? How far back we can take the ideas of discovered technologies, re-constructing them with tools and materials available at the time? Would it have been possible to build a modern steam engine 2000 years ago, if only they knew what they were doing?

I really enjoy your content and have been a long term subscriber thanks for the hard work that you and your team put into each video

Can’t wait for this guy to develop transistors

Try making a spade drill and a bow drill. Use it like a bore tool and make a wobler engine out of copper or brass. Very few moving parts and uses the steam pressure more directly than trying to push on air.

If we are willing to say they had the technology to make this, you could say they have pressure forming capabilities. So you could have done a form of hydroforming by clamping 2 rough hemispheres and a steam pipe or something to make the pressure

3:05 technically there had been steam engines as early as the 1600s (there's a patent from 1606 that was built and put to use in mines later that same century, it's just that the inventor didn't belong to the British Empire). BTW you don't have a metal lathe, but you could always use the wood lathe to make a mould to fold the copper on (or to make a sand mould to cast the metal).

i feel like a big issue with a lot of the projects like this, that work with metal specifically, is the precision is not nearly there yet. like trying to make the first version of this was very crude. I feel that once that issue gets remedied than more projects may become much easier, and it'd make revisiting older projects a goof idea to improve them as well.

flux will make your soldering easier. The difference it makes is phenomenal.

The worm gear may have worked if a fly wheel was placed over it, as was done with a spit jack in the 18th century

You could have drilled a hole, plug it using some tubes and attach it to a boiling chamber. Heat it up until it reaches a very high pressure so it straightens the copper to create a perfect looking sfere.

Don't be afraid to use 100% lead for projects like this. It's much easier to work with and as long as you have good ventilation with gloves you'll be fine.

While the lathe wasn't that long ago, it might be time to revisit it with some measuring and indicating tools. You very seriously would benefit from improving if only to make patterns for casting. You can make some pretty damn good bearings if you pour babbitt bearings.

Try felt with grease if you need seals/bearings. They can be adapted quite well. If you revisit the idea try to place the jets further away from the rotation axis to increase torque. Having the rotation axis vertical with all weight going into the sealing surface may also help. This reduces pipeing complexity and makes the sealing force more controlable by adding/removing weights.

This kind of stuff honestly makes me think of the Discworld series. On top of the fact that they do eventually invent a steam engine and build locomotives in the series, there are a few points where characters in the city of Ankh-Morpork go to the Street of Cunning Artificers to get something made or fixed. If they simply made or fixed the thing themselves, the reader's suspension of disbelief would shatter. Magic and dragons and werewolves and narrative causality can all be accepted, but a couple of random guys repairing a harp made by a master instrument maker? Or a bunch of elite academics making a modern soccer ball out of an animal bladder and some leather, with the precise stitching required? Not happening. But taking the broken harp or the idea for the ball to the Street of Cunning Artificers and asking someone there to do it? That makes sense. It's an entire Street in the most densely populated city on the Disc, full of people who have spent their lives honing extremely specific skills. You can believe in that time and skill. It makes a ton of sense that you can't make the precise parts that something like this needs without either a lifetime of skill or a metal lathe. But I bet you could find someone with that level of skill. I doubt they'd be cheap, but I'm sure they exist.

You should pre-heat the entire metal part. It one massive heatsink/spreader, so for good soldering you would have needed a much bigger heat source that you have otherwise. Your current solder bonds are probably all very poor and superficial, since the metal is not hot enough (and not hot long enough) to properly alloy. And thus the "seal" is also very poor. Also, use flux to get rid of impurities. The bond will be better and the surface tension of the solder will also decrease making it creep in crevises easily.

Pretty sure Codys Lab has some nice stuff on lowtech vacuum. Its just a narrow glastube that has some mercury dripping through it and an attachment on the side for whatever you want to draw a vacuum through.

If you'd like a "what if?" Timeline you might want to look into Stirling engines. They wet a response to the danger of steam engines

Been here since the start!

for the copper hemispheres maybe try hydro forming two soldered together copper disc I don't know when hydro forming was invented but they definitely had the resources to do it back then

im a goldsmith and need to make pipe quite often for hinges etc and i think he should use a draw plate for the pipes so he can get a way tighter seal also when it comes to soldering the solder wants to move to the hottest part of the metal so keep that in mind when soldering 😊😊

It would be a lot cooler if you put the videos of the Playlist in order.

That's a pretty interesting name for a 'Patreon Executive Producer' at 15:07 hahaha.

I appreciate the effort you put into recreating the aeolipile, and I understand the challenges you faced. However, the shift to modern tools is unsettling. Your channel has been my go-to for authentic historical recreations, much like how The Woodwright's Shop used only unpowered tools. This channel was the perfect antique fix I needed after that show ended. The appeal of your content has always been the commitment to period-appropriate techniques, even when difficult. While I'm not unsubscribing, this change makes me hesitant to watch. The authenticity of your approach is what sets your channel apart. I hope in future projects, you'll consider pushing through with historical methods only. Perhaps you could do a follow-up video comparing purely historical methods to modern ones? That commitment to authenticity, despite the challenges, is what makes your content truly valuable and unique.

For something soft like copper if you're doing a bowl or something like that other than just making a sheet or a plate if you use a press to do it it's a lot easier and more efficient

Just demonstrating a concept like that to early engineers could have inspired them to take it to the next level. It's a shame that it never really happened.

Considering that the Greeks made a computer, napalm and an engine… they definitely had too much time on their hands!