Artificial Smoke

This past week I messed around with that left-over Great Stuff. As greg said, that looks like a likely answer.

After it sets, it's pretty stiff and easily carved / sculpted with a knife. Problem is, as nice and smooth as the exterior is, when it's cut the surface becomes VERY porous. I found that plain ol' school glue (Elmers) would seal it enough to allow painting. I used old spray enamels and it looked okay. Nothing seemed to melt.

Still nothing comparable to those pics, though.  

Sawdeanz, I saw where you bumped up Johans post. That was the one I was referring to. Thx.

Perhaps I should have posted the link to where I got there from. It's at www.dynamicdioramas.org/modelindex.html

This guy, it turns out, works for Disney. No wonder.

I've got a left-over 1/4 can of Great Stuff in the garage that I might play with this weekend. You might be on to something there. Run a wire attached to a diode up a piece of coat-hanger for the flame area and cover it all with spray foam. Scrape and mold 'til it looks right and finish. Hmmmm. I've only ever coated Great Stuff with house paint but, it seems to readily absorb it and holds well.

Let's figure this out before I lose more sleep. 

I think it looks so real because the smoke was made out of a solid material, instead of the usual cotton fibers or whatnot. I don't know what he did to make that, but the expanding foam idea sounds pretty good. I need smoke in a dio that will be built eventually, and i'll try several ideas and try to figure it out.

The 'long shots' looked like the expandable foam you can get at home centers for insulation. But shot #72, taken from a low angle and a bit closer, shows what looks like fibers of some sort toward the base. It might be cotton batting or its synthetic equivalent.

But whatever it is...IT'S AWESOME! 

Pretty cool stuff.

Steve