Books


Building the Rio Grande K-27 (Volume 1)
Kozo Hiraoka

The Rio Grande K-27 is the author's newest project serialized in the Live Steam & Outdoor Railroading magazine in the USA for around ten years. This book covers the first half of the K-27 building. K-27 is a narrow gauge but well-designed Mikado-type (2-8-2) locomotive. The model traces the prototype's complicated design, such as bar-type frames, piston valves, full equalizers, brake system, etc. From the articles, I got a lot of excellent hints for designing and constructing of my C53 locomotive, especially the boiler design and construction. Volume 1 covers almost all of the engine's construction, except additional detailed equipment and the tender. The past five geared-type models which the author presented are, if anything, eccentric and interesting. However, this model has a universal and sophisticated design that could be applied to a lot of world principal locomotive models. I recommend the book, especially to those who wish to build large scaled models.


Building the New Shay (A 1920s Shay in 3/4" Scale)
Kozo Hiraoka

This is Kozo Hiraoka's latest model steam locomotive construction guidebook which was issued a few weeks ago. Apart from the fact that the author is Japanese as I am, I think this is the world's number one book in this field! The main content is a construction manual of 3/4" scale 1920s Shay which was published serially in Live Steam magazine. If you had already read the magazine, you will agree with me that Kozo's serial far surpassed other articles in the magazine. From the serial, I learned a lot of techniques in both construction and design of model locomotives. Moreover, the author presents many appendixes for the book, e.g. the redesigning of the New Shay for 1-1/2" scale, how to design a copper boiler and safety valve, how to utilize o-rings, etc. You can get new and powerful technology of model engineering from the book. I am proud that such an excellent book was written by a Japanese.