Wire Rope for Wick?

[Section1]

Hmmm, ash from burnt juice maybe? Or is your rope stainless? I went to Lowes today after seeing people here buying rope locally, and all Lowes has is 7x7 galvanized rope, which you would NOT want to use.

I think it was the oxide layer that was coming off. It looked like uncoated stainless steel where the black/gray coating was gone. I think I might have over did the torching and quenching trying to be sure I removed any hidden stuff on my wire rope. Since I use cotton on the top it really isn't necessary for me to oxidize anyway.

 

[shortyjacobs]

I think it was the oxide layer that was coming off. It looked like uncoated stainless steel where the black/gray coating was gone. I think I might have over did the torching and quenching trying to be sure I removed any hidden stuff on my wire rope. Since I use cotton on the top it really isn't necessary for me to oxidize anyway.

Could be, the wires on the rope are way larger than the wires in the mesh, so maybe the chunks that fall off are bigger too? My Pyrex tube arrives tomorrow, hoping I can get away with no oxidation at all.

 

[BrokenLung]

I plan to read through this thread more thoroughly as soon as I have time. Looks like interesting stuff. I have 1 major concern though. Would it be possible to ever get all of the machining oils off of the wires that are on the inside of that wire rope? Seems like you would have to ultrasonically clean and then heat it until thoroughly glowing red? (if this has already been covered then just ignore my post & I will try to dig back in the thread and find it)

Shorty, thank you for looking into this. I believe finding an easy to use great working wick other than fiber glass is the biggest issue in vaping right now. We have plenty of equipment but no ideal wick.

 

[shortyjacobs]

I plan to read through this thread more thoroughly as soon as I have time. Looks like interesting stuff. I have 1 major concern though. Would it be possible to ever get all of the machining oils off of the wires that are on the inside of that wire rope? Seems like you would have to ultrasonically clean and then heat it until thoroughly glowing red? (if this has already been covered then just ignore my post & I will try to dig back in the thread and find it)

Shorty, thank you for looking into this. I believe finding an easy to use great working wick other than fiber glass is the biggest issue in vaping right now. We have plenty of equipment but no ideal wick.

It's a very valid point. There hasn't been much discussion of cleaning yet. The wire rope is not THAT tightly wound. My first rope wick was "unlubricated" (the 7x7 SS), although I'm sure there was machine oil on it. I just gave it a torching and water rinse, and figured it was good to go. I got no off flavors or anything like that, and it wicked well, so I'm assuming it worked. I often rolled mesh up and then torched it, and with the tighter weave of 500 mesh I'd expect it to hold more oil than the wire rope.

The 7x19 rope I gave the same treatment to, and it did not want to wick well at all. Either it's due to the geometry/higher strand count, (which would surprise me), or it's because that wire rope was "lubricated", which means it's impregnated with a lubricant to repel water. I wonder if that lube isn't silicone based, and my torching did little to touch the silicone, meaning the rope was a bad wick because it was full of lube.

I just grabbed a can of acetone from the store yesterday. I get my pyrex NMR tubing in today. I plan on doing a solvent soak, maybe even an ultrasonic solvent bath, with the acetone, (although I think it might melt the plastic lid on the ultrasonic), then just a quick water rinse and heating to get rid of the solvent. Then, I'll wrap a coil on the NMR tube. My hope is to have a clean wick with no torching required, (I'm getting worried about the possibility of hexavalent chromium from the torching method - heating the wick to red hot allows for oxidation to chrome VI, which is very much bad for you), and no need to build an "oxidation layer" for insulation.

My second approach is if the pyrex doesn't work out, I want to try the same cleaning method but again skip the torching for health reasons. I'm wondering if just a strong oxidizer might build up a nice Cr2O3 oxide layer on the SS without the need for heat and the risk of hexavalent chromium formation....I was going to start with H2O2 and work my way up.

In any case, I'll be trying the acetone bath with both wicks to see if I can improve the performance of the 7x19 rope. Acetone wasn't my first choice, but I couldn't find any pure Ethyl acetate or MEK at the hardware store.

 

[The Hill Giant]

In case anyone is interested, I got my rope in yesterday. I'll be testing it for the next week and a half and will talk about it on my show a week from Wednesday. I will give credit where it is due, don't worry.

 

[shortyjacobs]

In case anyone is interested, I got my rope in yesterday. I'll be testing it for the next week and a half and will talk about it on my show a week from Wednesday. I will give credit where it is due, don't worry.

Nifty, I'm famous, (as long as it works for you...).

 

[shortyjacobs]

Major disappointment in the Rope Wick Labs today .

First off, I got my NMR tube in. In spite of the wire rope being 2.38mm nominal and the glass being 2.43mm nominal ID, I couldn't get the rope wick into the glass.

In my desire to make it fit, I tried removing strands from the rope wick. And I discovered inside of both the amazon 7x7 and 7x19 rope wicks are two pieces of nylon thread running up the center. Probably to help with manufacturing. A good torching should reduce them to ash, but it's still yucky. I tore apart my rope wick that I'd torched and been using for the past week or so, and there was no hint of thread left in it, so I guess my torching of it took care of that. But it pretty much nullifies the idea of using the rope wick untorched.

I really wish I could find some non-rope wire. some 12 or 14 gauge SS wire should work...(single bunch, composed of maybe 50 strands, would be pretty sweet), but my google foo has not come through for me. That stuff shouldn't have threads in it.

All ya'll who got rope already, tear a bit apart and look for red and/or gold nylon threads....or torch it good to burn that stuff to ash.

Edit: Looking around to find the best price on 1x19 SS. Thinking it won't have the thread...dunno how well it'll wick, but we shall see.

 

[foggybottom]

It's a very valid point. There hasn't been much discussion of cleaning yet. The wire rope is not THAT tightly wound. My first rope wick was "unlubricated" (the 7x7 SS), although I'm sure there was machine oil on it. I just gave it a torching and water rinse, and figured it was good to go. I got no off flavors or anything like that, and it wicked well, so I'm assuming it worked. I often rolled mesh up and then torched it, and with the tighter weave of 500 mesh I'd expect it to hold more oil than the wire rope.

The 7x19 rope I gave the same treatment to, and it did not want to wick well at all. Either it's due to the geometry/higher strand count, (which would surprise me), or it's because that wire rope was "lubricated", which means it's impregnated with a lubricant to repel water. I wonder if that lube isn't silicone based, and my torching did little to touch the silicone, meaning the rope was a bad wick because it was full of lube.

I just grabbed a can of acetone from the store yesterday. I get my pyrex NMR tubing in today. I plan on doing a solvent soak, maybe even an ultrasonic solvent bath, with the acetone, (although I think it might melt the plastic lid on the ultrasonic), then just a quick water rinse and heating to get rid of the solvent. Then, I'll wrap a coil on the NMR tube. My hope is to have a clean wick with no torching required, (I'm getting worried about the possibility of hexavalent chromium from the torching method - heating the wick to red hot allows for oxidation to chrome VI, which is very much bad for you), and no need to build an "oxidation layer" for insulation.

My second approach is if the pyrex doesn't work out, I want to try the same cleaning method but again skip the torching for health reasons. I'm wondering if just a strong oxidizer might build up a nice Cr2O3 oxide layer on the SS without the need for heat and the risk of hexavalent chromium formation....I was going to start with H2O2 and work my way up.

In any case, I'll be trying the acetone bath with both wicks to see if I can improve the performance of the 7x19 rope. Acetone wasn't my first choice, but I couldn't find any pure Ethyl acetate or MEK at the hardware store.

I hope the scubaqu pyrex tube insulation works out for you, but I believe the method is conceptually flawed, because it blocks a very important element in the "evaporative cooling" model that atomizers employ, namely airflow to the wick where the evaporation occurs. What you achieve instead is that you cool your coils, which means that you have to pump out even more watts to heat your pyrex to get your juiced wick warm. Without airflow to the wick, vapor pressure increases in the pyrex tube, making it even harder for more juice to evaporate. When it does, it almost boils and shoots straight up. It's like trying to run a swamp cooler without a fan, or trying to dry out your flooded basement with just heaters and no fans, takes foreever because the vapor stays in your basement (pyrex tube) instead of going out the door (to your lungs).

I hear you about your concerns regarding Cr6 and I'm very interested in what you are going to find trying to oxidize the wire rope chemically. I know we assume that torching ss increases its electrical resistivity by increasing Cr oxides on the surface, but do you have a source that states that is true rather than just hearsay? If you do, please post it, I can't find one. I wonder instead if it's instead the martensitic transformation that the steel undergoes with torching that does it. Basically, if you heat the metal to red then cool rapidly, molecules of impurity, like carbon, can't migrate out fast enough out of the reforming metal crystals, hence the crystalline structure of the metal is disrupted, along with its electrical conductivity.

Anyhow, good luck with your trials and keep us posted. I'm still on my original set up, and after 6-7 ml have noticed a bit of a drop off in vapor production, probably as a result of the fact that I haven't rinsed the tank once!

 

[shortyjacobs]

Ugh - rolled a 500 mesh, 1.5" x 3" wick. Treated the tip to a bic lighter burn and some juice burns. Have a 0.8 ohm coil on it on a mech mod.

I've been spoiled by my rope wicks. This thing wicks for crap now. Have to tilt like mad to keep up with the low resistance, and still get a dry hit if I chain vape too fast.

Ordered some 1x19 unlubricated 304SS wire rope from McMaster - hopefully this stuff is thread free and still wicks well, (seeing how the juice jumped up the big channels in the 7x7, I have high hopes here).

 

[shortyjacobs]

The only hints I can find about chemically oxidizing SS involve sulphuric acid, (meh), and chromic acid (yikes). Chromic acid is aqueous CrO3, or hexavalent chromium. No way I'm getting near that stuff, (oh, and the whole mess has to be heated to >70*C). I guess hybrid wicks will have to do, (or maybe the 1x19 rope will support a coil directly??)

 

[millertime660]

The only hints I can find about chemically oxidizing SS involve sulphuric acid, (meh), and chromic acid (yikes). Chromic acid is aqueous CrO3, or hexavalent chromium. No way I'm getting near that stuff, (oh, and the whole mess has to be heated to >70*C). I guess hybrid wicks will have to do, (or maybe the 1x19 rope will support a coil directly??)

Well that suck! Cant wait for my new RBA tp come so I can start experimenting.... cant bring myself to pull apart my AGA coil. Its working soooo good

 

[Plumes.91]

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...s-steel-wire-instead-kanthal.html#post7911888 Nooooo, plumes.91, that would never work. It wouldn't have any capillary action. It would be gravity. Your crazy for even proposing it. OH REALLY GUYZ? REALLY? HMM. HM.

 

[foggybottom]

Major disappointment in the Rope Wick Labs today .

First off, I got my NMR tube in. In spite of the wire rope being 2.38mm nominal and the glass being 2.43mm nominal ID, I couldn't get the rope wick into the glass.

In my desire to make it fit, I tried removing strands from the rope wick. And I discovered inside of both the amazon 7x7 and 7x19 rope wicks are two pieces of nylon thread running up the center. Probably to help with manufacturing. A good torching should reduce them to ash, but it's still yucky. I tore apart my rope wick that I'd torched and been using for the past week or so, and there was no hint of thread left in it, so I guess my torching of it took care of that. But it pretty much nullifies the idea of using the rope wick untorched.

I really wish I could find some non-rope wire. some 12 or 14 gauge SS wire should work...(single bunch, composed of maybe 50 strands, would be pretty sweet), but my google foo has not come through for me. That stuff shouldn't have threads in it.

All ya'll who got rope already, tear a bit apart and look for red and/or gold nylon threads....or torch it good to burn that stuff to ash.

Edit: Looking around to find the best price on 1x19 SS. Thinking it won't have the thread...dunno how well it'll wick, but we shall see.

Yep, I found it. It's very fine feathery stuff that comes apart easily.

Well here's an idea to for you guys to shoot down: from a jewelery supply store I ordered some 22 gauge anodized aluminum wire to try to braid my very own electrically insulated (should be if it is anodized) wire rope wick. Thoughts?

 

[Plumes.91]

A lot of people are afraid of using aluminum because its supposedly linked to Alzheimers.

 

[foggybottom]

A lot of people are afraid of using aluminum because its supposedly linked to Alzheimers.

True, in the past aluminum in dyalisis fluid caused a brain disease in people with kidney failure, but the association with Alzheimers is very controversial, and I believe that neither the FDA or the Alzheimer's association claim it, but I need to look into it more. Another consideration is that given the hard coat of aluminum oxide given by the anodization process, even less elemental aluminum is likely to leach out. In any event, I'm curious to see if I can make something that wicks is electrically insulated from the coil.

 

[unloaded]

Have you tried Nextel ceramic sleeve over the wire rope instead of the SS mesh? It wicks well, electrically insulated and heat resistant. It needs to be torched before use for a thorough cleaning.

 

[Section1]

I took my SS rope apart and I didn't find anything in it like you guys are seeing. I will try to find out what brand it was I have.

 

[shortyjacobs]

I took my SS rope apart and I didn't find anything in it like you guys are seeing. I will try to find out what brand it was I have.

Please do!! My 500 mesh wick that I'm using until my 1x19 rope comes in just isn't nearly as good. I'm craving wire rope, and hate the idea of the nylon thread in mine :/.

First off, where did you buy it?

 

[Section1]

Please do!! My 500 mesh wick that I'm using until my 1x19 rope comes in just isn't nearly as good. I'm craving wire rope, and hate the idea of the nylon thread in mine :/.

First off, where did you buy it?

I bought it from a Mom and Pops hardware store. I'm going to try and run over there tomorrow and see what brand and see if they will tell me where they got it from. Store name is Hitterman's, really nice hardware store for a small town. I'll let you know what I can find out.

 

[silentnights]

I want to start off by saying that I am by no means educated in this subject and only propose this information/suggestion as a complete novice fumbling around in the dark hoping to hit gold.

What about titanium 7x7 braided rope/cable? Titanium if I'm reading it correctly has one of the lowest conductive properties of the metal families. It does not rust or oxidize and should withstand the temperatures that we are working with rather easily. Also, as part of the manufacturing process, titanium is put into a sponge like state which can also be purchased. Titanium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has information that may be useful to those smarter than I. If the link doesn't work, just wiki titanium.