Green demon Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 So I jumped into dabbing without researching it and I made a few mistakes on the way. Thought I'd share what I've learnt. Knowing nothing about bongs, dabbing, glass, blow torches, or isopropyl alcohol it's safe to say this side of the hobby (dabbing) can seem quite dangerous, extreme maybe, and perhaps best left alone. Very much wrong. Well, actually, at 80% THC maybe oil is a little extreme, and yeah 99.9% alcohol evaporating away don't sound too healthy, and shit when you think back my smoke kit used to consist of baccy, rizzla, and lighter. Now it's a bong, an oil rig, a blow torch, and a mini lab like I'm cooking green meth. So from an outsiders perspective is does seem crazy, is it really all worth it? Here's how I fell in love with dabbing I buy a bong because I'm giving up baccy. I know nothing about bongs but a perculator sounded like a good idea, so did ice notches, and the one I bought came with an oil kit. For the life of me I couldn't work out how it went together and reluctantly had to resort to YouTube to understand it. A male to male adapter converts the bong to an oil rig. The quartz nail sits in the male joint and gets heated up, a bowl goes over it and a dab tool puts oil on the nail. I made some QWISO which was much simpler than I expected, and quicker. I defoliated my girls earlier and stuffed the leaves in a jam jar. Covered with isopropyl alcohol and shook for thirty seconds then poured through a coffee filter into a Pyrex dish on a water bath and reduced down to oil. The quartz nail and dome produced incredible flavour, superb. If you over dab and fill the nail you can cover the bowl with your hand and create an oven to slow burn the oil. This means you can take a couple of hits. However the quartz nail reduces in temp very quickly, they move around a lot in the male joint, and require you to put a glass bowl over a red hot nail. Not the best design if you're hands are a little on the shakey side. It was too fiddly for me so I ordered a domeless titanium nail and an oil bowl to try. The titanium nail first. It's a metal male joint going into a female glass downstem. The nail is getting super heated thus expanding, so joint wax is recommended. I personally think continued use of one of these is going to pop a downstem or two, I'm def no expert but I don't like it. The flavour of vapour off the titanium nail cannot match the quartz, it's close but no cigar. The ti nail is much easier to use though, much less fiddly, and a carb cap can be used if you need. My preferred method instead of heating the nail was to instead heat the quartz nail and use it as a wand. The quartz wand can also be used to vape/combust dry herb which tastes amazing The oil bowl was the best of the lot in my opinion. Primarily because it's quartz on glass the flavour was brilliant, it's simple to use, and there's no worries about overheating and cracking the downstem. So after smoking pretty much just oil for a week I decided to get a designated oil rig which came with a different type of ti nail and I order a quartz banger on top with a carb cap. I was thinking ti nails in male joints not a good idea but this design is perfect. A small weight at the bottom to keep it stable, and adjustable stopper that rests on top of bong so doesn't compromise the glass. I love the Ehle design and oil dome and it's pretty easy to use, heat nail, drop over dome, dab and go. However again ti lacks the flavour if we're going full flavour the quartz wins, and again, nail and dome design is not for the clumsy, and it also lacks dab control. The best, IMO so far, is the quartz banger with carb cap Drop oil into banger, put cap on top, gently torch bottom and vape away. Smoothest, most flavoursome dab so far. 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
golf.007 Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 Hi mate, That's exactly what I did to stop smoking. Dabs not tabs, that's been my motto for nearly a year now and love it. I have only made qwiso a hand full of times as I don't really have the equipment to purge and the like, I made some rosin about a year ago and never looked back. You can get a decent Chinese enail for £65 which makes life a lot easier. I'm rocking a newvape flowerpot which I cannot recommend enough if you want to stop combusting altogether. Good luck on your journey dude. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigseyjnr Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 Can anyone recommend a nice glass bong that I can use with my vapcap, yet also run a nail to do dabs. Not too big so it can sit on a shelf without looking to blatant. Would like to to say I'd rather pay more and get one made in the uk/Europe, but budget may hinder that for a while. I was a big bong smoker growing up. Can't believe I'm so late to the dab party 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green demon Posted January 20, 2018 Author Share Posted January 20, 2018 @golf.007 I love that motto mate, you start selling car stickers I'll have one. Yeah the purging thing initially put me off but I believe QWISO doesn't require it, evapouration is all that is needed to separate alcohol from oil. Making BHO requires the purging tech. My next step, BHO or Rosin. I made one dab of rosin using some hair straighteners and that convinced me too that concentrates was the way forward! The taste of the rosin was just incredible. I've been looking at the enails thinking they are where it's at for convenience but the ones I've seen on the online headshop were £500! I like the sound of your Chinese option. TBH though I'm sat here dabbin using the ti nail but heating the quartz wand instead and the flavour is soo good, and I get much more control over my dabs using the wand to heat the oil. Give the wax a touch and vapour billows off, stop contact and so does the vapour. ATM I'm not too concerned with dropping smoking for vaping but that's the direction I'm going as my taste buds change, it seems the vape produces a much tastier experience I've never enjoyed before. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teehee Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 (edited) cheers for an excellent thread @GreenVision mate..... very informative and good personal experiences. It took me ages to realise a 'nail' wasn't a sharp pointy thing for hanging pictures up with. I was never sure I was doing it right..... this is what I have been using..... I got a decent 'ice slider' bong.... I then thought about the nail itself, and went for a quartz banger..... I got one with this angle so that when I tip the bong over to 45° and inhale, the banger is horizontal. To attach the banger and get a decent air mix, I got a new down tube..... and I also wanted to cool the vapour further with one of these, a pre-cooler....... When I put it all together, it looked like this.... as you can see, it's had a fair bit of use, ahem...... The red clips are well handy. What I do is get a blow torch and heat the quartz banger till it glows red, then drop some bubble hash in..... I usually press it as flat as I can beforehand, to get it all to melt in one go. I have a titanium dabber with a carb cap on it, and I just hold the cap over the banger to prevent loss of the vapour as I inhale from the bong. I think I'm doing it right, am I? Seems to work well, but let me know if I can do better with this set up! Thanks again for doing this thread..... now you need to add a complete idiot's guide to QWISO and other concentrates..... I only know bubblehash and canna-coconut oil (and I wouldn't wanna smoke coconut oil!) aren't you worried that there's some residue from the ISO that's getting you so mashed up? Enlighten me, GV Bro! Edited January 20, 2018 by teehee 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Mix Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 When the quartz is red wait till it cools for around 20/30 seconds.. Then dab and carb the bowl with a carb cap, lower temp is bigger flavour, I only say as no one has mentioned it.. Also on the glass front it better to have a MALE joint the if you use a hybrid it nail with ceramic , Quartz it won't crack the glass when it warms due to expanding ... Get some organic cotton buds and clean the bowl after every dab... For max flavour you want as little defusing as all the slits in perks eat some of the terps.. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerPalmersNT Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 I LOVE my yocan torch for an easy route into dabs. I have several quartz, Ti and ceramic nails too. To be fair the quartz one at JUST the right temp is the nicest but its a piss about and none of it really sees the light of day any more. 9/10 the yocan is what I smoke of an evening. Also have a cfx for herb. The yocan can be found for about £20 from china, you can get a pack of spare coils - which I pop into iso when dirty (which is reasonably quick), shake em up and clean. They last forever if you are careful. They are basically 2 quartz cylinders wrapped in wire coils. Dab goes straight on them. No temp control, but doesn't seem to matter. I freeze anything sticky so I can easily just drop a little rock of it in. Best results I get from pulsing it rather than going the whole 15 seconds it switches on for. Also smoke hash in it. The best part about it is that if its a bit of a monster dab I can choose smoke it in little bits if I like - rather than a standard nail where you have to smash the whole thing in a oner. You can also get pancake coils for herb, but haven't tried those. Its also totally modular - so you can stick a battery box from an e-cig on it if you want or any other coil. Best bit is no risk of third degree burns from a crazy hot nail, and no pissing about with butane torches! I keep my kit meticulously clean, other than my herb bowl and nails, wash with ISO every few uses: 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teehee Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 @Marthur Ix what do you do if it cools down before you've had the lot? Also do you keep the cap on at all times, if so how does the air get in for you to inhale? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigseyjnr Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 Now I'm even more confused 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigseyjnr Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 My old milk bottle bong was called "the bitch dredger" she was dirty 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MicGrow Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 I second low temperature dabs for flavour a smoothness, also health I reckon. Rosin all the way, I love that it's solventless. I'm dabbing on a ceramic nail with carb cap at around 275 degrees C which is nothing compared to combustion. I use an infrared thermometer and play around with cooling times from red hot (harder with ceramic to see cherry red hot though so use the thermometer everytime.) Every few uses I heat it very hot and the ceramic "burns off" back to a clean white/ ivory colour. I also bought a Dr Dabber Aurora electric oil pen but for some reason it tickles and makes me cough my guts up 90 percent of the time, I get the occasional super smooth amazing hit from it. It's a mystery. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Mix Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 (edited) @teehee. You put dab in Quartz and feather the carb cap up and down to control airflow, it quite simple as it goes.if it cools down before you finish it was to cool, then if it all you got when it cooled down then place to in fridge and tack it off, be grim taste next dab though... Edited January 20, 2018 by Marthur Ix 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teehee Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 Looking back at my last post, you wouldn't believe I've been caning it for over 30 years, smoking my way around the world, and now I'm asking if I'm getting stoned properly!!! Looks like I've been doing it right, thanks @Marthur Ix 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lildaveham Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 2 minutes ago, teehee said: Looking back at my last post, you wouldn't believe I've been caning it for over 30 years, smoking my way around the world, and now I'm asking if I'm getting stoned properly!!! Looks like I've been doing it right, thanks @Marthur Ix you also namechecked the wrong op it’s @Green demon not @GreenVision Its early il give you that fella stoners eh peace lil d. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teehee Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 Nice one @lildaveham, shows I must be doing it right.... it's 10pm over here, and I've been at the Night Queen on and off all day since 8am! Sorry @Green demon mate, nice thread! I'll get my coat now....... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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