Great New Book Now Available

I recently received a newly published book "A Climax Class A Live Steam Locomotive" by Ed Hume. It describes the step-by-step construction of a Gauge 1 circa 1910 locomotive which is a hybrid of a Shay style upright with a Climax drivetrain. The level of construction detail is remarkable with over 350 color photos and more than 650 drawings within its some 260 pages.
This book is somewhat reminiscent of those authored by Kozo Hiraoka and published by the Village Press. Unlike Kozo's coal burning locomotives, this one uses a clean burning dual jet butane burner. The complexity of the build described in this book would probably not make it suitable for a beginner's first project, even though one just might be tempted by all the hand-holding provided by the excellent step-by-step documentation. Imperial dimensions are used, and the engine's 1" size will make scaling to other gauges relatively painless.
The book is written from the novel perspective of a university professor teaching the locomotive's construction to a group of students in fictional classrooms of the Live Steam University. Its unique presentation and laid-back writing style takes the edge off what could have been a dry technical cookbook.
A live steam locomotive isn't yet on my to-do list, but each time I pick up the book with the intention of casually paging through it, my interest is inevitably captured by some interesting banter between the professor and his students or by a new construction or work-holding technique being described. For example, the book contains the best treatise on skew bevel gear construction that I've come across. I found the sheetmetal and boiler making techniques especially interesting since I've had little experience with those in my own IC engine builds.
This book will be at home on either the living room coffee table or the workshop book shelf. It's now available directly from the author's website http://model-shop.net as well as Amazon. The author's website includes a download area so a perspective builder can obtain many of the engine's constructional files. ***** Terry

Terry,

Thanks for posting this. It sounds like an interesting book.

Chuck

Terry,

Thank you so much for this thoughtful review. There were years of effort that went into making the book, and it means a lot to see some recognition and appreciation, especially coming from such an accomplished craftsman.

There was an uptick in orders after your post and the book went to #30 on Amazon for the Metal Work category. You guys who bought the book - what do think? Can you recommend it to your fellow hobbyists? With all the color photographs the book is expensive to produce, but I still think color was the right choice.

Best Regards,
Ed Hume

Terry and/or Ed, I realise this is an old thread, but maybe you could answer a couple of questions...
1. Is the design mainly suited to CNC machining, or are instructions given for manual machining setups, for example motion parts and the cutting of the gears, both straight spur and the skew bevels. Or does a builder need Kozo's Climax book to adapt his calculations and setups to suit the Gauge1 bevels?
2. Would you consider the component design to be sufficiently "fine scale" so that it may be scaled up for example 2x to 3.5"gauge or would it end up a bit too "chunky"? Perhaps some parts may need to be slimmed down?
Thank you Terry for your review, I'm glad I came across it.
And Ed, thanks for your input to this hobby over many years.

Regards, Ross G.

Ross,
I was hoping Ed would reply as he was the author, but he may not visit this forum any longer. I'll try my best to answer your questions, but again I never built the model. I think the design is scalable upward, but Ed did machine some of the major parts on a Tormach. Ed never used (or even owned) any CAM software. He scratch wrote all his routines which were 2D and not more complicated 3D. That said, it would be possible to manually machine those parts, but you won't have the handholding in the set-ups that Kozo typically provides. If I remember correctly, Ed provided his contact information in the book so a reader could request his CAD routines, and so you might try contacting him directly.

Even if you decide to not build the model, the book is a good read and worth the money for that alone. - Terry

I'm part way through building the "Titan engine from the book. I only have a manual lathe and milling machine but I can't see anything that can't be done on my machines. I have a company called HPC gears very close to me who can supply all the gears if I decide to go down that route, I have cut my own gears in the past but I don't have the necessary cutters. I could buy them but they are quite expensive to just use once. I'm in the UK and had to wait almost three months for the book to arrive !!

mayhugh1 said:

Ross,
I was hoping Ed would reply as he was the author, but he may not visit this forum any longer. I'll try my best to answer your questions, but again I never built the model. I think the design is scalable upward, but Ed did machine some of the major parts on a Tormach. Ed never used (or even owned) any CAM software. He scratch wrote all his routines which were 2D and not more complicated 3D. That said, it would be possible to manually machine those parts, but you won't have the handholding in the set-ups that Kozo typically provides. If I remember correctly, Ed provided his contact information in the book so a reader could request his CAD routines, and so you might try contacting him directly.
Even if you decide to not build the model, the book is a good read and worth the money for that alone. - Terry

Click to expand...

Thank you Terry. I was particularly curious to see Ed's ideas on the calcs and machining of the skew bevels. (I have a thing about gears and gear cutting). Kozo makes his gear cutters using the circular button tool method to suit his tooth size rather than designing the gears around standard DP or Module cutters. The main advantage is the commercial cutters are HSS and of the correct involute form for milled teeth. I realise that in small sizes the button tool method is VERY close to the correct form, but not quite perfect, and the cutters will be DIY hardened and tempered plain carbon tool steel not HSS. Probably getting a bit pedantic here...
The general steam engine motion parts are all easily(?) machinable on manual machines using Kozo's or others setups.
All very interesting.
Regards and thanks again, Ross G.

Tidza said:

I'm part way through building the "Titan engine from the book. I only have a manual lathe and milling machine but I can't see anything that can't be done on my machines. I have a company called HPC gears very close to me who can supply all the gears if I decide to go down that route, I have cut my own gears in the past but I don't have the necessary cutters. I could buy them but they are quite expensive to just use once. I'm in the UK and had to wait almost three months for the book to arrive !!

Click to expand...

Actually, cutters are not difficult to make--tedious, but not difficult. There are many utube vids on this, e.g., This old Tony, I thimpfks Blondi, and others I've seen.