So I stopped and asked myself, “Could I come up with a way to
create the effects of smoke and steam coming from my locos
running on the layout?”
After some experimenting, here’s the technique I developed.
Getting smoke in my steam locos
To create the smoke for my N scale steamers, I use Q-tips
swabs as the starting point. I cut the swab stick in half; this
gives me two chances for each swab, one for each end.
I tease out the cotton using a dental pick; a round toothpick also
works, and I pick at the cotton little by little. I aim to tease it out
into a thin, airy texture that will look like smoke or steam (2).
I like to leave as little cotton as possible attached to the shaft
of the swab when I am done. It took me a little practice to
get some good enough to be classified as keepers. Those that
didn’t turn out to my liking were used for smaller projects that
I will share with you a little later.
1
1. Typical locomotive without smoke.
