Customer Reviews

Building Small Steam Locomotives: A Practical Guide to Making Engines for Garden Gauges

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have ever seen a small steam locomotive in operation, found out that the owner built it, and thought "Gee, that looks like fun, but I could never do that..."....this book IS for you. Mr. Jones has an entertaining style, decades of experience, the ability to instruct, and a willingness to share. He also keeps you focused so that a project does not become overwhelming and unsatisfactory. Even if your plans are just dreams, you will gain much knowlege and appreciation as to what makes these little beauties go. Many fine pictures to keep your inspirations under a full head of steam!!!

I found this book not to be a complete step by step guide to building a particular steam engine, but is extraordinarily helpful in understanding how engines are built [ which is very easy ] and how to go about making an engine of your own design, which can easily be accomplished by going through the basics. Highly recommended for the handy home machinist.

If you have dabbled G scale and have some moderate machining, brazing, and silver soldering skills (and equipment), "Building Small Steam Locomotives: A Practical Guide to Making Engines for Garden Gauges", will fill your mind full of wonderful projects that you can accomplish in a few weekends and be very proud of. There-in also sits the only problem with this book. It addresses a very niche type of beginner. If you want to build the engines in Jones' book, you will need a desktop lathe and some practiced skill. Jones falls into the "Adobe Syndrome" a bit - the practice of introducing basic concepts at a beginner level, but then requiring skills beginners wouldn't typically have.

But I gave it four stars?

While Jones may have missed the mark in practically and applicability, he more than made up for it with an honest, entertaining, engaging and clear writing style. Couple that with excellent photography and "Building Small Steam Locomotives" is an inspiring read. While I may have doubt that most readers will actually build Jones' locomotives, I have little doubt that readers will enjoy this book, be happy to have it on the shelf, and move closer to actually building and modeling live steam G gauge. And it will influence the beginners choices in a positive manner.

I'm off to price lathes.

Oh - Jones does make an excellent recommendation that I believe adds immensely to his work. He suggest the reader first build a Ruby before really going on in the book. It's excellent advice. A Ruby is a live steam locomotive kit that can be assembled in a weekend by a novice. The process will teach even a complete beginner they logic, function and terminology of live steam systems. Plus, the Ruby can be the basis of a project from the book. Your favorite search internet engine can lead you to the Ruby.

Great book!

The book was written very well, and good referance if your building an English Garden Train.
It shows one way to start with a Mamod (made in England) engine that is a american style and convert it to the english square type. There is a lot of good materal in the book, just not what I needed.

A great book for the average Person who wants to build small Garden Steam locomotives.