Imperial Big boy smoke output

Perhaps an air pocket.. Try lightly blowing down the stack

Spence - that a great smoker!

MIKE

WOW, I know a lot of owners of another brand that wished they had similar smoke volume.

How are you playing around with it?  You might check how the wick is, but many of the double stack engines tend to have more smoke out one stack, normally the back when in motion.  You could try making a brass baffle that ensures half the smoke unit output goes to each stack at the funnel.  G

Hi George. My "playing around" has consisted of moving the wick and also the position of the elements slightly. The wick in the engine is looking tired so I have some new MTH stuff on its way to me.

Your idea about altering the smoke path is a sound one - I had thought about starting by just modifying the angles in the cast piece MTH provide and then move on from there.

But that BB in the video is the best I have seen.

MIKE

mike w: A short video closeup.

Is that the imperial or a different model?  Depending on the model I have seen double stacks with a divider that helps distribute smoke, or if it is a heavy smoker you naturally get smoke out both stacks.  G

GGG: Imperial

2nd that Smoker, Mine is the same.

The Imperial RK Big Boy makes LOTS of smoke.  

It will run you out of the room in just a few minutes if you don't have good ventilation and exhaust fans.

PS

At one point I had 2 of those, they both smoked like mad.

MIKEW , I AGREE, THE SMOKE COMING OUT AT A FORWARD ANGLE IS ANNOYING! MACHINING THE SMOKESTACK CASTING SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD POSSIBILTY

I thought I should post an update. My new MTH wick supplies arrived this morning - very quick delivery! - so I though I would have another look.

This time I also inspected the fan and motor where I found a lot of crud caught up in the fan blades. I wonder if when spinning this was restricting the air flow periodically as it rattled around. I also gave a thorough clean to both the exhaust hole and the entrance to the smoke chamber. Again I removed some gunk that I hadn't spotted before.

I would add that I did buy this engine second hand.

The new wick is braided, the stuff I pulled out was not. Anyway the upshot of all this is my smoke output is much improved but not yet as good as in the videos. Tomorrow I will have time to let the engine run for a while when I work on the layout (In between watching the Rugby 6 Nations!!) so we will see if there is further improvement as the wick soaks up more fluid.

So for now I live with forward smoke, which appears to be less noticeable.

Thanks for all the input everyone.

CHEERS MIKE

Glad it's working better.