Testing the steam engine

Finally decided it was time to test the steam engine, see if it had the power to run all the devices on the ship.  I set it up temporarily on a piece of plywood, but with the same configuration it will have on the ship.   I was pleased, it was only running at half power and with that could have run several more things.  Running the generator later will be no problem as well as a complex set of machinery that will be in the front section, if I ever get to it.  The engine turns a main drive shaft with an extra flywheel that then goes to the back driveshaft and to the rear drive of the ship.  That shaft then reconnects to a gearbox that turns the chain to the Gatling gun.  This little gearbox with a screwdrive was essential because I had to change the direction of the drive pulleys as the gun faces the rear.  This piece came out of an old betamax video machine.  Sony built good stuff back then.

Heres the firebox of the engine, uses a minature camp stove running on butane.

 The sony gearbox, will be painting and cleaning it up later, giving it some patina.

Picture of the whole setup

And a video of it running and at the end the laser firing