What is a good liquid smoke substitute
thanks Larry
I heard if you mix ammonia and bleach together you get smoke. [:P] Do not do that though its poisonous gas!
Mineral oil worked in my old Tyco Choo Choo.
Seems as if someone said “refined” mineral oil
Smoke fluid is really just mineral oil, but it’s mineral oil of a specific molecular weight(boiling point), and perhaps more importantly of a specific viscosity.
There are two general types of smoke units in use-the wick type, used on most Lionel and other large engines, and the seuthe type, which is far more common in smaller scale engines.
The wick type units aren’t really picky about what type of fluid they use, although oils which are too viscous can clog the wick, and leave behind a high-boiling residue that can cause problems.
Seuthe units, by contrast, draw the smoke fluid up a narrow glass tube by capilary action. Because of this, viscous fluids will easily clog the capillary, and ruin the unit.
Seuthe units really should use Seuthe smoke fluid. Wick type units can use seuthe fluid, but it doesn’t give the best results.
Some have had good luck using lamp oil in their wick units, but I personally would shy away from this because lamp oil is really designed to burn and not vaporize, and may work as designed at a most inconvenient time.
Under no circumstances should commonly available “mineral oil” or baby oil be used in either type of smoke unit. It’s far too viscous, and probably will cause problems.
There was a rather heated debate on the Garden Railways forum a couple of years ago about using mineral oil in smoke generators on G-scale locomotives. IIRC, nothing was ever determined one way or the other. About the only thing people agreed on was that some brands and types of smoke generator could be damaged if you didn’t use the manufacturer’s recommended fluid.
We have one of the Micro-Mark fan driven smoke generators on our HO scale club layout inside a building on fire. We’ve used the fluid provided by Micro-Mark, mineral oil, Bachmann fluid, and Crest brand fluid with almost equal results. Other than the smell, there seems to be little difference between these products.