Helpful Hint of the Day…Turn Them Smoke Units Off!

 

I'll turn off my smoke unit when they remove my JT's Mega-steam bottle from my cold dead hands.

Scott Smith

Here ya go, safe smoke :

I recall seeing photos in a magazine where they used stretched out cotton balls, thought it might sooth some nerves here (just don't let it fall out and get wound up in the siderods!) (Yikes!  She's wide open and gonna hit that bumper )

You could also get one of those new electronic cigarettes and prop it in the smoke stack...or just turn the smoke off

As I mentioned before, the main ingredients in a quality smoke fluid are the same as those in E-Cigs.  Vegetable glycerin makes the "smoke" (actually  a vapor) and propylene glycol carries the scent/flavor.  A quick search of the internet shows pure glycerin to have a flash point of about 320 Deg F, and PG to have no practical flash point.  Quality smoke fluid WILL NOT IGNITE in your engine.  The wadding and plastic, however, WILL if you run  it dry.   

Seems after doing a little more research all the major brands are either using, or contain oils.  a little worrisome, but I suppose it works out well enough.  Obviously manufactures do't want to say exactly what's in their fluid, but I wouldn't mind hearing from anyone in the know on if there are only traces of mineral oil, or if that is the primary ingredient in lionel/mth/megasteam.  

People seem to be compelled to sound the alarm for looming disasters of absurdly low probability. I am reminded of those who tried desperately to get their hands on Cipro during the anthrax scare several years back, or the lady in Tucson last year who phoned in an Ebola scare to the public health authorities because her pastor had returned from a trip to Africa (he had gone to his native Zambia, a couple of thousand miles from the Ebola outbreak). 

In the immortal words of John McEnroe: "You cannot be serious!"