Black Smoke for Models - revisited

A few Lou?  I'll bet!

I think we're pretty stuck with white smoke unless we want particulate covering everything in the trainroom!

This topic seems to come up every few months.

Didn't the N&W say black smoke is waste? I would think that it wouldn't be easy to do this. I do know that the steamer downtown does pop black smoke when they are getting up some speed from time to time, but it is almost always white. I suppose the mix is a reflection of working hard or trying to keep up steam.

Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Didn't the N&W say black smoke is waste? I would think that it wouldn't be easy to do this. I do know that the steamer downtown does pop black smoke when they are getting up some speed from time to time, but it is almost always white. I suppose the mix is a reflection of working hard or trying to keep up steam.

You always wanted a light brown haze. Black smoke is wasted fuel.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

A few Lou?  I'll bet!

I think we're pretty stuck with white smoke unless we want particulate covering everything in the trainroom!

This topic seems to come up every few months.

You are quite right, John.  This one comes up often enough to at least comment on it.  I know one of Rich Melvin's hot buttons is people trying to make their own smoke fluid.  Thanks for joining the commentary with good advice.

Lou N

So Lou and John, when will we come up with an ALCo turbo lag circuit for those fan driven diesel smoke units?

How about a short chemistry lesson that

1. is easy for the most non scientific among us to understand

2. shows why black smoke won't work

3. shows the health/environmental hazards

4. can be referred to the next/next/next/next/next  time this comes up

Because it's going to come up again, and again, and again.

Folks who do not understand the chemistry/physics of it will keep asking about it.

It’s not smoke, it’s vapor and in order for it to have color you would have to introduce some sort of dye into it. Well, dye is very finely ground particles. Then what happens when the vapor condenses, you have colored dye on everything.

Instant weathering

Closed as requested by Lou the originator....