Do you like your limelight?

[The_Professor_2019]

I guess the 'real' vape experience is when it satisfies you on an internal level..

In my case is is the mix of old school technology that is also an extension of my personality. (The pipes go with my bow ties, and slightly eccentric personality)

I am also looking forward to having a device that is once again, absolutely unique, and specifically made for me....

Then comes the question, how do I maintain my customisation once I have got all my mods exactly as I want them?

What can I end up being impatient to arrive?

So I have decided to start ordering what I need to make my own juice.....

But made in that slightly extreme and unorthodox way of mine.
Managed to get some second hand burettes and retort stands.
I have also got a cheap magnetic stirrer on its way.
Therefore I can create a recipe that is not only tailored to exactly what I want, but is also exactly repeatable.............






Am beginning to wonder if I may be slightly OCD

 

[bombastinator]

OCD is a fantastic quality in engineers. It helps them become old engineers instead of dead engineers. Research scientists too. Any “wet” profession really. Sloppiness can get a body killed. I’ve survived so far mostly on dumb luck and the grace of the almighty.

 

[The_Professor_2019]

I do play with cutting edge technology and incredibly precise tolerances and huge currents.

So I guess I cannot change the way my brain works.....

 

[jandrew]

Issues: the thing is an unvented protruding button mech that uses 18350 batteries. That’s ten year old tech and not particularly safe ten year old tech even back when it was modern at that.
18350 batteries are not the most common thing any more. Plus they hold relatively little juice. You are not going to want to subohm DL on that thing. You’re also not going to want to put it in your pocket ever, or even allow it to tip over when it’s got batteries in it.

They do, in fact, have ventilation, and as for the button, you can get either the arc or flat version, and it is only the center part of the button that is depressed ... also, you can rotate the button/battery cap out a turn or two to prevent accidental firing.

 

[bombastinator]

I do play with cutting edge technology and incredibly precise tolerances and huge currents.

So I guess I cannot change the way my brain works.....

There are worse occupational hazards. Like death.
Or spending 15 years in a neurology ward like one of my painting professors had. He liked to mix old style polyester resin (contained methyl ethyl Keotone and xylene) and really pretty powdered heavy metals with his hands because he was in a hurry to make his admittedly gorgeous paintings. Dude still suddenly laughed for no perceivable reason in the middle of class sometimes.

 

[stols001]

Married to a very OCD engineer, he's supremely useful when like, we are not yelling at each other

I do not interfere when tax time comes. But also, I am now quite frightened of many household items I did not know enough to be frightened of, before.

It's all tradeoffs, I guess.

Anna

 

[dripster]

Could I ask why you refer to it as Ersatz?

It's just how I (as in, me, personally, i.e. the exact opposite of what @stols001 is trying to insinuate by trolling me once again like usual) look at it, based on my own personal experiences in general. The device is trying to mimic smoking by creating that impression, first and foremost IMO visually and in terms of how it feels when you hold it in your hand and bring it to your face, etc., but because the obvious truth is still vaping is fundamentally very different from smoking, I could also have claimed that this alone is reason enough to label it as Ersatz.

 

[bombastinator]

It's just how I (as in, me, personally, i.e. the exact opposite of what @stols001 is trying to insinuate by trolling me once again like usual) look at it, based on my own personal experiences in general. The device is trying to mimic smoking by creating that impression, first and foremost IMO visually and in terms of how it feels when you hold it in your hand and bring it to your face, etc., but because the obvious truth is still vaping is fundamentally very different from smoking, I could also have claimed that this alone is reason enough to label it as Ersatz.

Hmmm. A not totally unfair word choice IMHO I guess. It’s not really really pretending to be a pipe though with say, a “glowing ember” and hidden atty like some of them though. Plus there’s a ton of metal which tobacco pipes generally avoid. Vaping at its heart is primarily about not smoking and it does whatever is needed to help that end. In this case apparently it needs to be pipe shaped and pretty.

As for @stols001 she seems quite up beat and fairly hard to piss off. I have personally behaved stupidly in her electronic presence before. (I do that a lot, generally) Did you pee in her Cheerios or something? She could possibly be quite protective of her Cheerios.
Me, pee on my Cheerios all you want. It just makes em stick better. I just let my Cheerios bounce off the cat and roll around normally. The cat seems to enjoy the rolling.

 

[dripster]

What exactly is the “real” vape experience?

It tends to be somewhat loosely defined I guess, but in this specific instance I am more inclined to infer that if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

 

[bombastinator]

That was the 618 series e-pipe.
Although marketed under different names.

I started with 618b that had great big cartridges the size of bullets that sat inside the pipe-stem.

I got through a lot of those. Then they brought out a 618c. It was the same electronics but had a glass tank with punched cartomiser.

The reliability was the issue. The longest a bowl lasted was maybe two months, and unfortunately 2 weeks was not uncommon.

In the end, I was buying 5 heads a time direct from China but it really was unsustainable.




(Just an additional thought.... I guess many people would wonder why I stayed committed to a device with such a bar reliability issue...... It was actually not bad for the time, quite unique and used bigger batteries than the 510s, Gammuchis and the like available at the time)

Just a little sideline story, my first device was an e-cigar. And 10 cartridges.

It was a cigar, because it was the smallest battery technology at the time.

It was given to me at a business seminar given by a group called business link. It was about building a business plan.

I was sat next to a very nice Chinese guy who gave me a sample box. During one of the lectures, he took his cigar out and started blowing 'smoke'.

Needless to say, the lecture stopped and he was told to put his cigar out. So he stood and explained that it was not smoke, but water vapour. He told everyone about this electronic cigar. And was allowed to carry on using it.

He was trying to get funding to start selling this new electronic cigar in the UK.

As far as I know, it was the first time a commercial vaping device had ever been seen in Britain.

Neat! That pwns all my “old vaper” stories. My first vape was a cloud9 cigalike.

 

[bombastinator]

It tends to be somewhat loosely defined I guess, but in this specific instance I am more inclined to infer that if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

This particular aphorism can occasionally incense Canadians. They sputter in French and wave 20 dollar bills at you. Kind of handy really, you don’t even have to take your top off.

 

[dripster]

Hmmm. A not totally unfair word choice IMHO I guess. It’s not really really pretending to be a pipe though with say, a “glowing ember” and hidden atty like some of them though. Plus there’s a ton of metal which tobacco pipes generally avoid. Vaping at its heart is primarily about not smoking and it does whatever is needed to help that end. In this case apparently it needs to be pipe shaped and pretty.

Well yes of course it isn't pretending to be a real pipe, but my description of 'ersatz' still applies IMO because the word actually means substitute, so in that particular sense IMO it's got more to do with the feel of holding a pipe, touching it whilst holding it, making gestures with it, and bringing it to one's face like a normal pipe so the user doesn't have to give up that specific part of the real pipe smoking behavior style or ritual that some (or a lot of) entrenched pipe smokers think is an important part of their own personality and identity (because they are pipe smokers, pipe smoking makes them who they are).

 

[dripster]

This particular aphorism can occasionally incense Canadians. They sputter in French and wave dollar bills at you. Kind of handy really, you don’t even have to take your top off.

Deathwish Modz and Twelve Monkeys are from Canada. I'm wearing my Harambae t-shirt and vaping Congo Cream on one of my 24mm Deathtrap RDAs while I'm typing this.

 

[Falconeer]

Well yes of course it isn't pretending to be a real pipe, but my description of 'ersatz' still applies IMO because the word actually means substitute, so in that particular sense IMO it's got more to do with the feel of holding a pipe, touching it whilst holding it, making gestures with it, and bringing it to one's face like a normal pipe so the user doesn't have to give up that specific part of the real pipe smoking behavior style or ritual that some (or a lot of) entrenched pipe smokers think is an important part of their own personality and identity (because they are pipe smokers, pipe smoking makes them who they are).

In many ways you are right - ersatz is now often taken to mean false or fake but its true meaning is substitute.

Can I argue with your point about "pipe smoking makes them (pipesmokers) who they are? Not really, I was Falconeer, the Old Falcon etc for much of my life ... I wrote about Falcons and much of what I wrote is still kicking around the web and still picking up the odd like.

All that said - every one of us can/have reinvent/reinvented ourselves as so many of us have by becoming Vapers.

Free of the shackles of smoking and indeed true pipe smoking however, after a few years I find that I'd quite like the comfort of sitting with an ersatz pipe to accompany my final whisky before turning in or settling down to read.

I supect the Professor too would enjoy the comfort of the once familiar in the form of a custom built "pipe" which he can contemplate admire and savour ( and I as the man who happily paid £300.00 plus some 10 years ago for a gold mounted 999 Peterson Special can see this)...but each to his or her own - you are The Dripster, that works for you and who can say that's wrong either.

As one famous and well known pipeman and tobacco blender once said to me - "You know Gerry, if everyone was the same we'd all be smoking Burley in corncobs!"

 

[The_Professor_2019]

They do, in fact, have ventilation, and as for the button, you can get either the arc or flat version, and it is only the center part of the button that is depressed ... also, you can rotate the button/battery cap out a turn or two to prevent accidental firing.

I have chosen the fusion arc switch.....

I must admit to being rather excited to see what comes.....

But I have just seen a hand carved gandalf mod as well.....


Oh, what should I do?

I guess I have to be happy with all the mods I have bought since Friday....

The batteries....

The new charger....

The chemistry glass work.

The tanks and coils....

And just order one next month


I may have a bit of an obsession going on here

 

[jandrew]

I have chosen the fusion arc switch.....

That's probably the switch I would get as well ...

But I have just seen a hand carved gandalf mod as well.....

I look at those with some regularity as well ...

I may have a bit of an obsession going on here

You are not alone ... see the shinyitis thread for example. I suspect I may well pick up a wooden epipe this year (maybe a limelight, or epipemods, or ...?) -- I mean, I think I have enough squonk mods (for the moment <-- standard disclaimer so my shinyitis enabler support group membership isn't permanently revoked).

 

[The_Professor_2019]

Are the squonk mods, the modern version of 'Carlos Juice Box'?

Or am going too far back?

 

[jandrew]

Are the squonk mods, the modern version of 'Carlos Juice Box'?

Or am going too far back?

Essentially, although the juice box was before my time ... well, before my vape-time at any rate.

 

[JCinFLA]

Well yes of course it isn't pretending to be a real pipe, but my description of 'ersatz' still applies IMO because the word actually means substitute, so in that particular sense IMO it's got more to do with the feel of holding a pipe, touching it whilst holding it, making gestures with it, and bringing it to one's face like a normal pipe so the user doesn't have to give up that specific part of the real pipe smoking behavior style or ritual that some (or a lot of) entrenched pipe smokers think is an important part of their own personality and identity (because they are pipe smokers, pipe smoking makes them who they are).

All I can say is...here's one to ya'!
I'm a retired teacher, and I swear that's THE longest sentence I've seen since I quit grading papers 15 years ago. It actually brought back some fond memories of a few of my students.