So the other day, I am enjoying my Protank (I am down to one, cause my girlfriend commandeered one, I broke one, and the stupid CoOp I am in is moving like Molasses in January). So I am at work, seeing that it needs a new coil, and decide to give the tank a good washing.
Soon after, the leaking starts…
Now this is MOST distressing to me. Sure, I still use my EVODs, and they are pretty darn good. But, how the heck am I gonna put one of those things on my new ProVari? Of course I have a 510 to eGo adapter, I have several, but that is not the point. It looks silly on my ProVari compared to the sleek and seamless elegance of the Protank/ProVari union.
So I put a bit more water into the tank, so that I might isolate the leak. It leaks out slowly from two spots at first. Then I think I see a third spot. What the heck? Now I see a big leak where a small one was. So I refill, and sure enough three pretty bad leaks! How did I not notice this before? Well the leaks seem to be getting worse by the second. Then I realize what is going on, the water seems to be breaking down whatever is bonding my tank to the stainless tip.
So what do I repair this with? I saw a YouTube video of this guy using a silicone sealant adhesive. So I dutifully march up to Home Depot to get some. The video did not really say what kind of Silicone, so I was treated to a prolonged discussion with the plumbing section guy. He was not familiar with vaping, so he eyed me suspiciously (which I understand) and seemed to know only a bit about the products that I had to choose from (which I found quite annoying). So I am reading the labels of the silicone compounds to make sure they are safe for this application and he keeps telling me, “this one here from BRAND X is great, it will work”. I tell him, “Well, I am inhaling what I put in this tank, so I need to read the warnings, scooter”. He does not seem to appreciate being called “scooter”, but he does shut the hell up for a bit. I finally settle on Silicone II sealant from GE. It says it stops with the hazardous out-gassing within 24 hours, but then they all seem to say about the same thing. Sure, it could be hazardous, but I gotta have my Protank.
So when I get back to the office, I decide to put the silicone at the base of the tank and the nozzle connection at the top. I figure the bottom is gonna leak too, right? I might as well get proactive on this deal.
I have it secured, and I put a small amount on the seam and begin begin pushing up on it to push it into the seam on the top first. So about after the third push-up…catastrophe. The tip actually separates from the tank. Now that was unexpected. Now I am left, confused, violated, and without a ProTank (or a viable plan) to put it back together. All of the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, could not put Eddard’s Protank together again. Sigh.
The interesting thing is that what it is holding it together appears to be some sort of double sided tape? Not the way I would have gone to seal it up, but okay. I guess I could be wrong, but I had to scrape it off, and it came off like tape. So now, this after a bit of cleaning, I am left with this...
Well, it does look nice, even in two pieces. I cannot give up on it just yet. Hey look, you can sort of see me in a Morpheus-sunglasses kind of way reflecting off of the liquid metal tip! Although I kind of look like the slenderman cause my face is all blurry (I am not the slenderman). So now I am thinking, I thought the silicone was a good sealant, and the one I got was an adhesive sealant, so….why not just make a new adhesive seal with the silicone. I have no better ideas, so I put a nice bead evenly about the base of the Protank. I then carefully slide the stainless drip tip onto it. I very carefully place it with two hands into my AK39 sheave, which holds the Protank during e-liquid fillings usually.
And there so it goes. I could tell I was a bit heavy on the silicone, because some of it sort of oozed through to the inside. I really hoped to avoid that, but the die was cast! I took pictures but they sucked and don’t really show anything you can make out with the heavy handed silicone-ing. Just take my word for it, I used too much silicone. It went where it should not have.
Now I had to wait 24 hours for safety reasons.
24 Hours Later
So I am dying to try the Protank remake. I smell suspiciously at the tank, and it has a faint kind of chemically smell to it. So I put the tank down and give it a few more hours. Sometime later, that smell is still there. I re-read the MSDS sheets on the Silicone II. “All hazardous out-gassing complete in 24 hours”. Sounds good to me, give me some Huntsman!
So I fill er’ up about half way. Nervously, I screw the base back on. I give it a four minute soak. Then, it is ready to vape. The first hit…and it is COMPLETELY DISGUSTING. It tastes SO wrong. Ugh. My Protank is doomed. Oh, the humanity!
O Judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason,
My Protank lay buried in a silicone seal,
And I must pause, till it comes back to me…
In a fury, I rip it apart. It takes a bit of effort, and I did not drain the liquid first so it is messy, too. Temper, temper. I march right back up to the Home Depot. Who is there waiting for me in the plumbing section? You know it, its scooter. I walk right up to him and tell him to show me some O-rings. So he dutifully (if not very cheerfully) takes me over to them. We look at some #33 O-rings, and some #28 O-rings, and blah-blah-blah. I don’t really remember the numbers. It was useless. All of the O-rings were way too thick. AAargh. It is at this moment that I really am dispirited. I start thinking of the CoOp I am in that is 76 days old. My next three Protanks should be here by now, but they are not (long story). I am just not feeling particularly positive.
So after a few days of sulking, I have what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. I am listening to my tunes in my office, and someone starts talking to me. I am kind of spacing out while they are talking because it is a co-workers home drama, so I have to be polite and pretend to care, but really I am just thinking about other things… Ali Larter’s bikini body…will it be the same after pregnancy? Will she keep seeing me behind her husbands back now that she has a baby at home? Can I swing a threesome with her and Katheryn Winnick?
I glance down at my ear buds. Then it hits me! The ear buds are about the right diameter. Nice tacky rubber. They are non-toxic, and inert. The thickness appears perfect! It is just so crazy it just might work!
Quickly, I set my desk space into motion. First, I pull the extra bud out of the box they came it. Here it is, turned inside out. The ear buds are FROGZ brand purchased from Wal-Mart for 15 bucks.
So that is not gonna work as it is, but….snip, snip!
Now I can see it coming together. Just one more cut and it will be ready to try. SNIP!
Do you see what I did there? One cut takes the stem off, then another to turn the top part into a cone. So the widest part is not sitting on the desk, with a small hole on top. So then I stretch the big end over the part of the tank I am gonna slide my drip tip over. Now the small end keeps pulling the ear bud cone back up, but I need that, because the tip is gonna be trying to push it down when I slide it on. This will counter that force. Make sense?
Okay, so now on goes the drip tip. It goes right on. There is just a tiny part of the rubber that is about the same length sticking out all the way around when I finish. That is an encouraging sign to me. So I take it and leak test it (again). What do you know, she holds water! Now I am not saying this is the only way to fix a leaky Protank, but now I have a removable drip tip for this. It is no big deal to remove and replace at all. I would say it is better than the original!
Here it is…
It now vapes like a champ. Better than it ever did before. No kidding, the taste is great! Sometimes I am so good, I amaze even myself.
Soon after, the leaking starts…
Now this is MOST distressing to me. Sure, I still use my EVODs, and they are pretty darn good. But, how the heck am I gonna put one of those things on my new ProVari? Of course I have a 510 to eGo adapter, I have several, but that is not the point. It looks silly on my ProVari compared to the sleek and seamless elegance of the Protank/ProVari union.
So I put a bit more water into the tank, so that I might isolate the leak. It leaks out slowly from two spots at first. Then I think I see a third spot. What the heck? Now I see a big leak where a small one was. So I refill, and sure enough three pretty bad leaks! How did I not notice this before? Well the leaks seem to be getting worse by the second. Then I realize what is going on, the water seems to be breaking down whatever is bonding my tank to the stainless tip.
So what do I repair this with? I saw a YouTube video of this guy using a silicone sealant adhesive. So I dutifully march up to Home Depot to get some. The video did not really say what kind of Silicone, so I was treated to a prolonged discussion with the plumbing section guy. He was not familiar with vaping, so he eyed me suspiciously (which I understand) and seemed to know only a bit about the products that I had to choose from (which I found quite annoying). So I am reading the labels of the silicone compounds to make sure they are safe for this application and he keeps telling me, “this one here from BRAND X is great, it will work”. I tell him, “Well, I am inhaling what I put in this tank, so I need to read the warnings, scooter”. He does not seem to appreciate being called “scooter”, but he does shut the hell up for a bit. I finally settle on Silicone II sealant from GE. It says it stops with the hazardous out-gassing within 24 hours, but then they all seem to say about the same thing. Sure, it could be hazardous, but I gotta have my Protank.
So when I get back to the office, I decide to put the silicone at the base of the tank and the nozzle connection at the top. I figure the bottom is gonna leak too, right? I might as well get proactive on this deal.
I have it secured, and I put a small amount on the seam and begin begin pushing up on it to push it into the seam on the top first. So about after the third push-up…catastrophe. The tip actually separates from the tank. Now that was unexpected. Now I am left, confused, violated, and without a ProTank (or a viable plan) to put it back together. All of the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, could not put Eddard’s Protank together again. Sigh.
The interesting thing is that what it is holding it together appears to be some sort of double sided tape? Not the way I would have gone to seal it up, but okay. I guess I could be wrong, but I had to scrape it off, and it came off like tape. So now, this after a bit of cleaning, I am left with this...
Well, it does look nice, even in two pieces. I cannot give up on it just yet. Hey look, you can sort of see me in a Morpheus-sunglasses kind of way reflecting off of the liquid metal tip! Although I kind of look like the slenderman cause my face is all blurry (I am not the slenderman). So now I am thinking, I thought the silicone was a good sealant, and the one I got was an adhesive sealant, so….why not just make a new adhesive seal with the silicone. I have no better ideas, so I put a nice bead evenly about the base of the Protank. I then carefully slide the stainless drip tip onto it. I very carefully place it with two hands into my AK39 sheave, which holds the Protank during e-liquid fillings usually.
And there so it goes. I could tell I was a bit heavy on the silicone, because some of it sort of oozed through to the inside. I really hoped to avoid that, but the die was cast! I took pictures but they sucked and don’t really show anything you can make out with the heavy handed silicone-ing. Just take my word for it, I used too much silicone. It went where it should not have.
Now I had to wait 24 hours for safety reasons.
24 Hours Later
So I am dying to try the Protank remake. I smell suspiciously at the tank, and it has a faint kind of chemically smell to it. So I put the tank down and give it a few more hours. Sometime later, that smell is still there. I re-read the MSDS sheets on the Silicone II. “All hazardous out-gassing complete in 24 hours”. Sounds good to me, give me some Huntsman!
So I fill er’ up about half way. Nervously, I screw the base back on. I give it a four minute soak. Then, it is ready to vape. The first hit…and it is COMPLETELY DISGUSTING. It tastes SO wrong. Ugh. My Protank is doomed. Oh, the humanity!
O Judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason,
My Protank lay buried in a silicone seal,
And I must pause, till it comes back to me…
In a fury, I rip it apart. It takes a bit of effort, and I did not drain the liquid first so it is messy, too. Temper, temper. I march right back up to the Home Depot. Who is there waiting for me in the plumbing section? You know it, its scooter. I walk right up to him and tell him to show me some O-rings. So he dutifully (if not very cheerfully) takes me over to them. We look at some #33 O-rings, and some #28 O-rings, and blah-blah-blah. I don’t really remember the numbers. It was useless. All of the O-rings were way too thick. AAargh. It is at this moment that I really am dispirited. I start thinking of the CoOp I am in that is 76 days old. My next three Protanks should be here by now, but they are not (long story). I am just not feeling particularly positive.
So after a few days of sulking, I have what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. I am listening to my tunes in my office, and someone starts talking to me. I am kind of spacing out while they are talking because it is a co-workers home drama, so I have to be polite and pretend to care, but really I am just thinking about other things… Ali Larter’s bikini body…will it be the same after pregnancy? Will she keep seeing me behind her husbands back now that she has a baby at home? Can I swing a threesome with her and Katheryn Winnick?
I glance down at my ear buds. Then it hits me! The ear buds are about the right diameter. Nice tacky rubber. They are non-toxic, and inert. The thickness appears perfect! It is just so crazy it just might work!
Quickly, I set my desk space into motion. First, I pull the extra bud out of the box they came it. Here it is, turned inside out. The ear buds are FROGZ brand purchased from Wal-Mart for 15 bucks.
So that is not gonna work as it is, but….snip, snip!
Now I can see it coming together. Just one more cut and it will be ready to try. SNIP!
Do you see what I did there? One cut takes the stem off, then another to turn the top part into a cone. So the widest part is not sitting on the desk, with a small hole on top. So then I stretch the big end over the part of the tank I am gonna slide my drip tip over. Now the small end keeps pulling the ear bud cone back up, but I need that, because the tip is gonna be trying to push it down when I slide it on. This will counter that force. Make sense?
Okay, so now on goes the drip tip. It goes right on. There is just a tiny part of the rubber that is about the same length sticking out all the way around when I finish. That is an encouraging sign to me. So I take it and leak test it (again). What do you know, she holds water! Now I am not saying this is the only way to fix a leaky Protank, but now I have a removable drip tip for this. It is no big deal to remove and replace at all. I would say it is better than the original!
Here it is…
It now vapes like a champ. Better than it ever did before. No kidding, the taste is great! Sometimes I am so good, I amaze even myself.
