A look at various wicking materials for rebuildable atomizers

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Froth

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If you ever saw cotton freshly pulled from the plant, you would realize that it looks very much like the above picture. It's after you heavily process and bleach it that it looks like the store stuff. Also, those aren't seed - probably just small bits of seed hulls leftover. Cotton seeds are about as big as Apple seeds.
I've picked and dehulled cotton numerous times, I did it first in cub scouts when I was really little and I used to do it for my Grandmother who would spin fiber into her own yarn. Natural cotton off the plant appears to be whiter than the pictured stuff, which is what sparked my initial "looks dirty" post and it was mostly in jest. The rest of my posts were just having fun with the OP and poking a little fun here and there, no harm, I just don't like cotton with hulls still in it, for any application.

Back on topic, before I went to Rayon I was using unbleached natural de-gummed hemp fiber which actually performed REALLY good and had excellent flavor transmission but with certain juices you could taste the wick more than the juice, it has a very very slight earthy taste if you vape it with no flavoring at all, but it works VERY well with complex tobacco or strong flavored juice. It was this stuff BOUNTIFUL - Spinning and Weaving Hemp - 4 oz - 4.95
hemp.jpg

and now that I'm talking about it I think I'm going to pull it out of the closet and give it another chance, haven't used it since I started DIY juice and I'm curious now.
 
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Robert Cromwell

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maybe my taste buds have not fully recovered from all those years of smoking but I can't taste a difference between cheap drug store cotton and those more expensive imported cottons people here talk about.
Actually I tasted more cotton flavor from the expensive KGD cotton than I do from the cheapo salon coil cotton I now use.

I think that many like the KGD cotton pads because they are so easy to use. I actually have to snip off a length of salon coil and then separate out some nicely aligned fibers and roll them a bit before using.
 
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Magaro

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Drago Egyptian cotton

Straight out of the packaging, this is easily the gnarliest looking cotton of the bunch.

19446071525_cf63903583_k.jpg


Zero fiber alignment. Near zero tensile strength. When you tease it apart you get an airy network of fine entangled fibers filled with little knots of dense bundles.

19258700808_c79962749a_k.jpg


At higher magnification (10X), things get more interesting, with the fiber tangles taking on an almost cellular network appearance. It’s very easy for me to imagine this cotton holding an immense amount of liquid without collapsing on itself.

19450597661_4a50182e51_k.jpg


Rolled into a wick form, this cotton retains much of this cellular structure and is very springy, bouncing back to its rolled shape when compressed.

19258926300_f68cd5e3d5_k.jpg


Tensile strength is very low, so it might be difficult to get a tight fill in a coil. But I’m not sure that will be necessary. This structure seems as though it would provide good liquid contact with the coil with modest compression.

Next up: Cotton Bacon
 

Robert Cromwell

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Drago Egyptian cotton

Straight out of the packaging, this is easily the gnarliest looking cotton of the bunch.

19446071525_cf63903583_k.jpg


Zero fiber alignment. Near zero tensile strength. When you tease it apart you get an airy network of fine entangled fibers filled with little knots of dense bundles.

19258700808_c79962749a_k.jpg


At higher magnification (10X), things get more interesting, with the fiber tangles taking on an almost cellular network appearance. It’s very easy for me to imagine this cotton holding an immense amount of liquid without collapsing on itself.

19450597661_4a50182e51_k.jpg


Rolled into a wick form, this cotton retains much of this cellular structure and is very springy, bouncing back to its rolled shape when compressed.

19258926300_f68cd5e3d5_k.jpg


Tensile strength is very low, so it might be difficult to get a tight fill in a coil. But I’m not sure that will be necessary. This structure seems as though it would provide good liquid contact with the coil with modest compression.

Next up: Cotton Bacon
Tensile strength is low because the fibers are not aligned but every which a way.
 

Magaro

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Cotton Bacon

Pages and pages of YouTube reviews on this stuff. Right out of the bag, it looks pretty impressive. White, decent fiber alignment, fluffs up nicely.
19484234776_6f1f85b42b_k.jpg

Peeling apart a cut end shows how cleanly it separates into long strands. Not bad.
19503718042_8ba613913d_k.jpg

Casually tearing it apart, the strands are actually quite entangled, producing a lot of stray fibers.
19322421310_03dcd33d65_k.jpg

With some care, one can peel off a reasonably clean piece for wicking of uniform thickness.
18889533053_b4556b8645_k.jpg

Due, I think to the entangled fibers, cotton bacon compresses down nicely into a round wick with a little bit of rolling. Tensile strength is good, not great. More than sufficient for easy pulling through a coil.
19503766622_2fec80c723_k.jpg

I can already see why this stuff is popular. Easy to work with and looks like something you wouldn't mind soaking with juice and vaping off of.

Next up: Vapers Choice long staple cotton
 
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