Smoke fluid produces a mostly white vapor when heated in the smoke unit.
I have seen and used scented smoke.
Does anyone know of smoke fluid that produces colors?
Andrew
Andrew,
A squirt of teheratat into the locos stack will produce colored smoke. I get mine from a fellow named Moe Howard.
Jim
OK, Jim… I’ll bite, is that for real? What color doe it produce, gray, black?
Is it for real?! You tell me, Don.
The vaporized oil used in our trains has no color, it isn’t even “white”. The particles of oil are so small, they diffuse/refract the ambient light evenly and the appearance is white. Real steam locomotive exhaust is a mixture of waste steam and combustion byproducts. If the fireman is doing his job properly and the fuel is reasonably clean (aka fuel oil, hard wood or hard coal) there will be little particulate matter and the exhaust will be “white”. I’ve seen color photo’s of NYC J’s running at spead in cold winter conditions where there wasn’t even white smoke, just a heat plume. The air was so dry the water didn’t get a chance to condense into droplets large enough to refract ambient light. If the combustion process is incomplete, you will get grey or even black smoke from all of the particulate matter/combustion by products.
That is is a great examination of the process, Chuck.
I did not realize that the real “smoke” is more of an atmopheric and optical effect than I first thought.
I knew that light conditions did change the appearance of O Gauge Smoke.
Andrew
Hey, that same guy sold me that stuff and said it would grow hair.
TAUGHT ME HOW TO MIX SPOTTED PAINT!!
Too bad you’re not at my house tonight! My Nephew & Mom know how to make Blue Smoke using Dough & Cinnamon.[;)][:P][:o)] & the house still smells & looks like smoke. What a revolting situation! Cough,Cough,Cough.
In prototype practice, white smoke was indicative of a clean burn, as Chuck noted. Why would you want smoke of a different color (black), which would only demonstrate that your engine crew is doing a sloppy job?
And my guess is that any color additive’s that might be used in model train smoke–to make it black, for example–would probably result in eventually coating your walls, furniture, and layout with a nasty, hard-to-get-rid-of film.
One thing about smoke is that you can’t get different colors !! I talked to the makers of “Super Smoke”, the people that make a smoke oil for full scale aerobatic planes & model planes & they said only on some turbine engines is it possible to get a color in the smoke system so far !! Any colored smoke you see at Airshows is from flares !
Thanks, John
I remember way back when I was a kid (40 some years ago), that my Dad had a commercially available product that was some sort of crystals you could put on a fire in a fireplace that would cause the fire to change colors. I don’t remember if it changed the color of the smoke. It was cool looking but probably used some elements that were found to not be healthy for use around people. I think the product has not been available for a long time.
Her is a thought;
What if one were to wire a colored grain of wheat bulb that is placed inside the smoke stack.
A larger but simular device is used in theatrics to produce the appearence of colored smoke.
That might work, it would make a good project.
The colored flames are produced by using metalic salts, e.g. copper salts produce green. The smoke does not change color.