Gone back to simpler times eh? Don't blame you. You can invest so much time in this thing that when the results (are often) less than spectacular, compared to factory products, you just have to start reassessing the process, and whether you even want to invest the time.
_____________________________________
To the OP... Cotton can be tricky when you start out using it. First and foremost, cotton swells quite a bit when wet, so what fit in the coil nicely to start, now may be too tight - choking off juice delivery and in some cases effecting the actual consistency of juice vaporization.
- Rather than yank off chunks - you can "unroll" the cotton ball to find a, far easier to work with, flat "sheet" of cotton.
- Don't compress cotton too much when you make your wick... use less cotton to start, and only lightly compressed.
- A very light drag when you pull it through is all you need.
- Sometimes... too little is better than, what you think is, "just right"
- The capillary and retentive properties of cotton are not the same as silica. Because of the amount of liquid retained and supplied, you will find that what ever voltage or wattage setting you were using on an APV for a pre-made coil/silica wick... will be too much, or too little (narrowed that right down for ya'... didn't I? ) for cotton... depending on how you made the wick and other variables. You need to experiment... and I always start a bit lower at first.