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. 

​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.

• 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.
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Stay tuned for more updates on the next video

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.

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.

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.

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!