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How much "compression" should my simple lamina engine have? if i have too much compression how do i lesson the amount of compression? I thought that everything was supposed to be as air tight as possible?

close to air tight is probably the best way to say it. On one of my first models I made it as close to 100% air tight as i could get and blew out the jb weld seals each time just as it started running because the presure couldn't escape fast enough. i let the displacer piston leak slightly aroung the rod on my next model and while it worked and didn't blow the seals i am sure i lost quite a bit of power due to the leak. a better solution would have been soldered seals instead of jb weld so the presure would not have blown it out.

...........You control the compression by the stroke of the piston. mrweaseluv is not describing a lamina engine.

Hello, thank you for your help I have everything together and my piston is as air tight as i can get it, it feels a little springy, when i try to pull it out and then let go it springs back in and bounces a bit then stops. at first i didnt think i had enough heat so i used alcohol and then gasoline and then a half a cup of WD-40 lol no luck the piston pushed halfway out with the WD-40 but other than that i get nothing. I uploaded a few videos to YouTube but they are extremely poor quality, i hope you can see something useful to fixing my problem in the video, but i doubt you can even tell whats going on.

heres the links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOtGgprFwng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdwI5sU7J1U

once again thanks for any helpful hints or suggestions.

yes surgy my bad on this, should have checked my info before i spoke.