Smoke Fluid --- The Great Debate!

[Anonymous]

Surprisingly this thread is allowed. Its been beaten to death on 'the other forum', but at least its not been yanked here! In spite of all the nay sayers, I've used lamp oil on all my locos for the last eight years. No explosions, no flames, fires or deaths in the family. So if one wants to go this route, at least theres no deletions here.

[FJ and G]

Brian W.

Welcome to the more open forum.

I've spoken to at least 15 people who use non-smokeless lamp oil--the kind from Wal-Mart--without an incident, and for years. I cannot confirm this but I believe that the only downside is that the intervals between fillings is slightly less.

To my knowledge, no harmful effects of this type of oil has ever been experienced. I would, however, be extremely cautious about using a different fluid that has not been extensively tested.

[Anonymous]

I have to second the remarks about being careful & testing. Just because no one's stuff has caught fire before doesn't mean it won't happen to someone. Look at NASA -- for years, chunks of foam insulation would fall off the Space Shuttle during lanch with no ill effect. Until last year, that is. Seven people died because nothing had ever gone wrong before & people got complacent.

It's your money, but it's also your life. Exercise caution when you buy a new bottle & make sure you never leave your equipment running unattended. We'd all like to be able to talk to you tomorrow.

Tony

[Big_Boy_4005]

We be OPEN 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and WE aims to please!!![swg]

[spankybird]

Hi all,


We have seen this smoke fluid talked about and we bought some and have given it a short test try. [tup]

It’s JT Mega – Steam smoke fluid. It comes in 20 different scents. It gives a very nice white trail of smoke from the stack and shortly after the train passes so does the smoke. After 15 minutes of running the trains, you don’t test the smoke alarms.

It even has three dinner scents, which is great for the K-Line dinner.

Here is their web site.

www.jttrains.net

tom

[Buckeye Riveter]

About 3 weeks ago at a train show in the big city, I came across a vendor selling JT Mega Smoke Fluid. He was from the east coast and I told him I was from Roger's Corners, Ohio. He had a train running around the track just blowing out the smoke. I purchased one bottle and have tried it in two of my engines. It is absolutely great! Smells good too, compared to the standard Lionel and MTH smoke.

As to trying to duplicate the outhouse smell, just kitbash using the parts you find in the cat's litter box.

[ben10ben]

"I've used 3 in one oil in my american flyer challenger for years and no fire yet."

A lot of American Flyer operators in this area use the exact same thing. I've never been a big fan of it personally because it doesn't smell very good and I find that it tends to gum up the wicks badly, and in doing that make the wick centers much more likely to char all the way through and snap when being removed.

"smoke fluid is mineral oil. Possibly diluted with distilled water?"

Good idea, but not quite possible. Like any other hydrocarbon, it won't mix with water. Add a drop of water to your least favorite bottle of smoke fluid, and watch it sink to the bottom just like you would expect it to do with regular old motor oil.

"What I need is smoke pellets...I tried to interest a chemist friend to analyze some and make them, but no luck."

The pellets are an aromatic hydrocarbon known as meta-terphynil(sp?). It often sees use in other applications as an insulator in high-voltage electicity transmission, I believe. See January 2003 CTT for everything you ever wanted to know about smoke.

"I did recall an article in one of the mags that said don't use 'lamp oil,'... Looked for the magazine article when this topic started, assuming it was what it was all about, but couldn't find it"

That is indeed what the magazine article was all about. See OGR Run 199, February 2004, pages 6-8(Official Car Column).

[Anonymous]

bennie10ben,

Were you the one putting WD40 in your engines or was that lighter fluid?

pax

[ben10ben]

"Were you the one putting WD40 in your engines or was that lighter fluid?"

For your imformation, I would NEVER NEVER NEVER do something so stupid as to put some sort of highly volatile chemical in one of my engines.

I refuse to use lamp oil in my engines as well. It's too risky. I would much rather spend a few more bucks and be safe than to risk flames shooting out of the top of one of my engines.