How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

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Fender
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Fender »

Pipescs wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 9:51 am
(Snip)
The smoke was dense white being produced with DDT.
We would chase (closely behind) the DDT truck on our bicycles (cough, cough). It was great fun!
Dan Watson
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Bill Shields
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Bill Shields »

Explains a lot....😀
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
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Drprez
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Drprez »

So the results are clear. The design that worked best was Bills suggestion to run a coil in the smoke box.

I ran a line from the cab into the smoke box and made a wide coil around the outside of the blower about 5 times. I built a small tank to hold the fog juice(I ended up using parafin lamp oil not mineral oil smoked best at that temp.) Every few minutes I give a few pumps and it works like a charm. Exactly as needed.

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Nicholas Kalair
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blff cty lcmtv wrks
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by blff cty lcmtv wrks »

this reminds me of something rather funny that happened to me many years ago. i was over at my friends house running my allen mogul on his track. the local newspaper had sent this lady reporter to do a story about us and take pictures of our operation. she was riding around on my train and we had stopped on the dam that held back a good sized lake. she wanted to take some pictures of the engine and asked me the age old question. Could you make it smoke? my engine was an oil burner, so it didn't smoke quite as much as a coal burner, but i came up with this crazy idea. i put out the fire, turned up the oil flow and then turned up the draft. we had plenty of white "smoke" boiling out of the stack. she got her pictures, but when i stuck my torch into the firebox to relight the fire, it went BOOM. a big fireball came out of the stack, out the firebox, all over the ground, i thought i was going to burn up some valuable body parts, and in the process, the smokebox door blew about forty feet down the track. scared the bejabbers out of me. i think the lady reporter had an accident. anyhoo, i had enough pressure in the boiler to make it back to the station. we stopped along the way and picked up the smoke box door. they made fun of me the rest of the afternoon. on of my friends said, "there's something funny about the front of your smoke box, but i just can't put my finger on it". there were six 5-40 stainless socket head screws holding the door onto the smoke box. what was left of them came out fairly easy. they told me it sounded like a bomb went off. and that, boys and girls, is how you make fake smoke in an oil burning allen mogul. don't recommend it.
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Pipescs
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Pipescs »

but when i stuck my torch into the firebox to relight the fire, it went BOOM. a big fireball came out of the stack, out the firebox, all over the ground, i thought i was going to burn up some valuable body parts, and in the process, the smokebox door blew about forty feet down the track.
I have a oil fired foundry furnace. when refilling the crucible between pours the fire will die down. Not un usual in a relight to startle everyone standing near.

Being somewhat cowardly, I only have coal fired engines.
Charlie Pipes
Mid-South Live Steamers


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NP317
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by NP317 »

Yikes! Too close to disaster.

Decades ago I watched a young fireman in training on a 70-ton logging Mikado restart the oil fire without clearing the gases from the firebox with the blower,
as he was instructed to do.
The blast blew him against the tender oil bunker, removed all his facial hair, and broke one arm. Quite a sunburn too.

I've never made that same mistake.
RussN
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Bill Shields
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Bill Shields »

sometime, over a couple of beers, I can relate the story of a Westinghouse 501 turbine, running on natural gas, where the operator (who naturally was in a hurry to get the generator back on line) -> bypassed the start-up (purge) timer and did similar to what is described above.

He was not hurt in any way, but it opened up the exhaust end of the turbine like a sardine can, split the stack open and toppled it over -> almost landing on the control room roof.

When we got there...the primary question on the operator's mind -> when can it be put back on line?

gotta love life in the Middle East desert.....
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Greg_Lewis »

I did that once on a 12-inch to the foot scale loco. We were pulling a grade, the hogger yelled, "Comin' out" and I didn't react fast enough and let the fire suck out. Fortunately no damage to the loco but the regular fireman was standing with his back against the tender, right in line with the fire door, and he was, uh, surprised.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
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NP317
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by NP317 »

We should call such firing events "Firebox Barf."
RussN
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Bill Shields
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Re: How to make “fake” smoke for boiler

Post by Bill Shields »

Or in the case of a gas turbine...exhaust fart -> which is somewhat redundant :mrgreen:
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