Blog Archives

Building The Prototype

16/2/2016

So after some careful consideration, I managed to come up with a plan for the construction of the "Smoke Generator" housing. I knew it needed to be durable and able to handle a moderate amount of localized heat, I also wanted it to be removable so I could easily clean it and also refill the oil pot when required.

After a short while brainstorming I came up with this drawing. So now I had a plan but unfortunately I had no materials. If you've been watching my tutorials you'll notice that I like to use everyday materials where I can and in a similar fashion with this build I managed to find an old hair spray cap to use as the oil pot. The other materials were a little more specialized so I picked them up at the hardware store.

Overall the general design is quite simple, the plan was to ensure the hottest part of the generator was a good distance away from the scenery on the layout yet still have the effectiveness of the smoke. The hottest part is about 5mm down from the top of the generator.

In the image below you can see the unit pieced together and you can see it in its separated parts. The red washers are fiber washers and able to withstand heat and compression, it's hard to see in the images but I've placed three washers around the aluminum tubing and sanded them on a slight angle, that way I'm able to simply press fit the oil pot and smoke generator into position with minimal effort thus fulfilling one of my requirements of having the oil pot easy to remove.
It's a plug style connection and the washers don't conduct heat very well which is great because I want to prevent any heat from coming into contact with the oil pot.

The two aluminum tubes connect by sliding one over the other, one hole has been drilled into each tube so by lining up the holes and inserting a pin you will be able to secure the tubes in place without the possibility of them separating.

And you can see in the first image at the top of the page the general idea of how the system will be installed on the layout. A hole can be drilled straight down through the layout then install a suitable length aluminum tube (the smaller diameter one), build your scenery over the top (for this scene I'll be making a camp fire), attach the bottom sections of the system (the smoke generator & oil pot) then wire it up turn it on and you're done.... easier said than done right!

In the next Blog update I should have the system running, I'll be doing quite a bit of testing before committing this design to the YouTube tutorial, I have to be sure it's a sound set up because the last thing I want is to send people down the wrong path leading to disappointment.

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Smoke Generator

15/2/2016

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After meeting up with another train enthusiast today for a coffee in the city I decided to take a short detour and visit the local hobby shop, and boy I’m glad I did. It’s funny when you think about it, I went there to get some HO scale people that I could use for the camp fire scene I’m working on (which I found and I’m very happy with) and I overheard one of the sales people talking on the phone about a “smoke generator” they had on hold for a customer.

What happened next lead to me not only buying the campers but I also bought a brand new smoke generator… oh and some small HO scale birds! …. Very expensive birds I might add!
I began experimenting with the smoke generator ASAP, overall I’m very impressed. There are a few issues I’ll have to overcome though.

One is the mounting of the generator under the layout, it shouldn’t be too hard as I’ve already got some ideas.
Two is the smoke generator tip gets very hot! It began to melt the mock up canister I had it in.

Even though it gets quite hot, the heat is very localized and dissipates very quickly as you move away from the generator. I have some Ideas on how to best insulate the generator so I don’t see this being a major issue at the moment.

The progress for this next video is moving along very fast, I have the flickering LED’s ready to go and tested which again I’m very impressed with, the smoke generator is basically ready to go and now it’s just a matter of piecing it all together and making a new diorama to showcase the scene as a whole.

I’ll most certainly add all the information about the LED’s, the smoke generator and even the HO scale people and birds in the tutorial video once complete. One last thing to mention is, I had considered using a smoke generator a while back however I decided against it due to cost! This little smoke generator I’m using here was much cheaper than the ones I had previously looked at and only cost me $55 Aussie dollars.

Stay tuned for more updates on the next video

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Chimney Smoke

14/2/2016

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I had a great idea as you could probably tell from the previous post about adding real smoke to the rural saw mill from Woodland Scenics... Unfortunately after doing some experiments I've come to realise that due to the size of the chimney it's not going to work.

Basically I built a mock-up to test the ability of the smoke to pass through a very small hole. The set up consisted of a coke can cut in half, a small stick of incense, a paper cone to funnel the smoke and some various sizes of styrene tubing.
Initially it looked good and I thought it was going to work, however once I attached the cone and installed a piece of styrene that was a similar diameter to the rural saw mill chimney, I found that the smoke struggled to pass through.

Additionally, the smoke that did make it through tended to be very linear and looked like a stream of smoke rather than the turbulent smoke you'd expect to see coming from a chimney. It's quite hard to see in the image below, a very small amount of smoke is making its way out the styrene tube. Not the effect I was hoping for though!

Never fear, I'm not giving up! I have some more plans to use live smoke on the layout. My next experiment will involve some campers and a camp fire, fully illuminated and I'll do some more testing with the smoke. I feel like this will work better than the chimney as the exit area for the smoke will be much larger.

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Rural Saw Mill

12/2/2016

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Trying to decide on the next video is nearly always a struggle!
I've got a few ideas and on the main page of this website I have a pole where you can make suggestions which is a big help.
At this stage I'm planning to film a video and add live smoke to a building, the building of choice at this stage is the Woodland Scenics Rural Saw Mill.

It's only a very small kit, which makes it perfect for filming a tutorial on. I'm yet to do a commercial kit tutorial but with the added effect of live smoke I think this will turn out quite good.
The plan is to add this detail to the "Realistic Scenery Vol 4" diorama and have it protruding out of the shed slightly with the smoke emanating out from the small chimney.

I'm still throwing ideas for the smoke around? Of course it has to be safe and contained to prevent igniting the rest of the layout!
Thus far I'm working with incense sticks contained in a heat proof container and I'm also looking into the dry ice option however dry ice tends to act like fog and sits on the ground rather than dissipate into the atmosphere.
I guess well have to do some experimenting! I'm looking forward to this tutorial and I'm hopeful that it works as planned.

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Street Signs

9/2/2016

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Whenever I drive anywhere I'm always swerving all over the road due to the fact I'm always looking for modelling inspiration!
I should really try to focus on the road better, a few videos I've made recently where inspired by things I saw while driving:

Realistic Billboards
Natural Trees
Pine Trees
Realistic Scenery Volume 4

All of these videos were inspired by things I noticed while driving... I usually get my wife to take some notes if she's in the car with me!

Here is my most recent example, there is a place near me called Humbug Scrub and while we were driving through I notice there were some really interesting road sign so Anna wrote a quick reminder for me. That way I won't forget and we can drive back there to get some ideas and photos for reference.

That basically leads into the next video. Next time you go driving down the street take notice of the road side and you might notice its littered with signs!

The next tutorial will be a demonstration of making your own street signs. From sourcing good signs to use, material to mount the signs on and techniques for formatting and printing your own signs. It might sound like a pretty basic tutorial and it really will be however there are many different options you have when deciding on what 'road' to take when building them.

"Pun intended" :P