I recently obtained some old back isssues of CTT. In the May 1993 issue there is an article by Arthur Zirul talking about his experiences working with trains on television when he was with Diorama Studios back in the 50’s. In the article it was mentioned that regular Lionel smoke pellets didn’t produce enough smoke to be seen on television, so they they used aspirin tablets instead. It said that the smoke just poured out then. I was wondering if this would be a safe thing to try on my postwar Lionel steam locomotives. Has anyone else tried this? Could it do anything bad to a smoke unit?
I sure wouldn’t do it, for a couple of reasons.
One, I have no idea what health consequences burning asprin would have, once airborne. It might just GIVE you a headache.
Two, I can’t imagine that they would be good for the health of your locomotive.
This was done for a “HOLLYWOOD EFFECT” without regard for anything once the camera was off. Keep in mind, that when you see a cereal commercial, that isn’t MILK, its Elmer’s glue and water, just like we use to ballast our track.[swg]
I would think that burning asprin would create an acidic condition that would quickly eat up a smoke unit. The smoke would also probably be irritating to the eyes and nose.
The Doctor is in[}:)] I think you should forget the asprin tablets. Go back in the CTT
issues for the article on converting old pellet smoke units to use smoke fluid. It’s much
safer, and save the asprin for the headaches. An if you will excuse this evil doctor, I
have to answer the bell at my secret entrance, someone wanting to use my death ray
nodoubt! Well, an evil doctors work is never done!!![}:)]
Please try to remember that toy train smoke is in fact vaporized fluid. That means that toy train smoke is not really smoke at all.
In fact you don’t want smoke. The reason the burning aspirin tablet worked on TV, is because the “smoke” was actually SMOKE! And that means it contained “particulate”. Particulates are what carcinogens love to cling to as they travel down to your lungs!
No thank you.
Stick with the vaporized parafin recommended by the manufacturer. And if you can’t find pills, re-build the unit for a few bucks in parts.
Jon [8D]
I have pellets and no engines to use them in. Email me at Hudson5344@comcast.net and we can talk soup.
Gary
I have a PW 2037 engine that works great with modern smoke fluid. I started using it before I read about the conversions kits, etc.
It really works fine. Just don’t expect huge clouds billowing smoke. The engine does put out more smoke the harder it’s being worked - that’s nicely prototypical. Guess what? Lighting makes a huge difference! Try running your trains in a room with oblique sunlight - you’ll see what I mean - it LOOKS like huge cloud of smoke.
It seems to help to have track level lighting - instead of just lighting from above.
I was just at a train show in Fort Washing PA and East Coast Trains was selling Lionel smoke conversion kits for 5.00. It had all the parts needs to convert pellet units to liquid units. I picked one up for my 2037 Lionel Loc. I still have a few pills left but once their gone, it will be converted to liquid. Unless you really like the pills versus liquid I would switch it for 5.00.
Joe
Whether you use liquid or pellets, DO NOT do the liquid smoke unit conversion downgrade. It limits your use to liquid only, and the elements do not last nearly as long as the nichrome wound elements.
Rob is correct there is no reason whatsoever to convert from pellet to fluid. Fluid works just fine in a pellet smoker.
I agree. I have used fluid in my pellet smokers for years at home, and in our holiday layout at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation. However, I only put in 4 or 5 drops at a time, to avoid flooding the unit and having it spill down to the wheels, so you have to re-do it every few minutes. Smoke fluid works well in Lionel postwar steamers such as #2025 and #2026 at 11 to 14 volts.
Also, if a postwar pellet smoke unit conks out, and you are able to open it up (with some heat and prying) and find where the heating wire is broken, you can re-attach it either to the power wire or to itself, by unwinding one winding to gain some slack, and the resulting shorter heating wire works hotter and produces more smoke (with the possibility that it may burn out again), but it sure looks good as long as it might last! I haven’t had any secondary burnouts yet, in moderate home use.
I like Bridgeengineer’s suggestion.
Just be aware that if the nichrome wire is shortened too much, the smoke unit will draw excessive power. I did have that happen once.
Also, replacement heater assemblies are readily available. I would expect just about any postwar Lionel parts dealer to carry them.
As far as using any foreign material in a smoke unit goes:
You will be inhaling the smoke, as will everybody who lives in your house. Some of the smoke will be depositing on your trains, layout, and everything else. Why would anyone use anything other than the material(s) that are intended to be used, and are known to be safe?
I know that people commonly take asprin, but not as an inhaled vapor or powder. And we generally do not put asprin vapor/powder on our stuff.
As an add on I found years ago that heating the cap with a bic type lighter liquifies the residue and then the cap comes off with ease.
While we’re on the subject, does anone know anything about Seuthe smoke units? I’ve got a Williams Berkshire with the aforementioned unit in it and I’m concerned if I run it without smoke fluid in it I might damage it. Is this a possibility? I can turn the smoke units off in my other modern steamers but not this one.
That’s one good thing about the old nichrome wire Lionel units, you don’t HAVE to put anything in there if you don’t want to.
Not a big fan of Seuthe smokers. They are better than nothing but they require a special fluid that burns off quickly and just do not look right when running.
As for converting to liquid smoke. I reccomend it. I have converted most of my locomotives to liquid using megasteam fluid and they have run fine for years. Smoke output is much better than using liquid in a pill smoker. If you let the wick dry out they will go bad but wicks are dirt cheap to replace. I just add a few drops of megasteam before I run and I get mountains of smoke for over an hour.
Thanks for the response Big Al. Actually, I use Mega-Steam in the Seuthe unit on the Williams Berkshire and it works pretty well, not as much as an MTH smoke unit turned up to yard fogger intensity but well enough.
Still, anyone know what happens if you DON’T have fluid in the Seuthe unit?
The SP smoke pellets are reproduced now, so get some of those and smoke it up. Even the scent is correct. They also work much better than the liquid in the older smoke units. Just took a boat load of years for someone to be both a chemist and a Lionel owner to anaylize the original pellets to figure out what was in them. The original recipie went to the grave with the inventor that produced them for Lionel. Mike
K-Line produced smoke pellets for a while. When I brought the old Lionel 2-6-4 out of hibernation about 20 years ago I went looking for pellets at a local hobby shop. They didn’t have the original Lionel types but they did have K-Lines. These were a bit different from the Lionel product being almost translucent while I remembered the Lionel pellets looked like mini aspirins. They worked just fine, though.
Certainly not in production any more, but if you run into any K-Line pellets don’t be afraid to use 'em.