I was going to use this story for starting a new thread, but since I can't figure out how, I'll just post it here.
Many of the young bucks I make fused claptons, claptons, etc. for down at the Vape shop say, "Klayton, why the Tube mechs?"
Well, I'd like to show why, and how I answered them and tell a little story in the process....
A few years back, before I was actually vaping, my eldest brother was into vaping, along with some of his MC-type Harley enthusiast friends ... well, there was one in particular that made an impression upon me, and probably does anyone (who vapes) and comes into contact with this eccentric individual ...
We'll call him "Dripper Dave" for the sake of anonymity.
'Ol DD was a huge dude, and subsequently everything he did, he did large and over-the-top. This extended to vaping, too.
He had big mechs; dual stacked 26650s and über-long dual 18650 stacked tubes were all he vaped; he claimed all other vaping paraphernalia was for little girls.... this made an indelible (sp?) mark on my not-yet-vaping psyche ...
DD was close to my brother. They went to H.S. together. Ate together... drank together; even picked up girls, and..... well, you get the picture.
DD had/has a diamond tool shop... he makes all kinds of custom bike parts for him and his club brothers ... (you'll see the significance of this next)
One fateful afternoon, he and my brother were talking vaping, and exchanging vapes
And generally just "kicking it" ... one of them had the bright idea, after looking over one of the CNC metal lathes, to spin up a DIY genuine home-made RDA and Tube mech.... of course, they didn't have any No. 1 copper layin around. But they did the best they could with what they had, and their initial results were, as I now know what I know about Goons, Trolls, RR, twisted messes, Mutations, etc, actually very cool!
In summary, after seeing this old geezer hittin this monstrosity of a mech mod, out of stainless steel, and literally filling up my old man's garage with plumes of thick, white, sweet smelling plumes, He unknowingly (along with my ...... brother) got me hooked on not only vaping, but tube mechs, forever ..... He told me the story of making his own hardware, and now I'm telling you.
Mechanical tubes forever.
(He is still to this day trying to find a backer, or sponsor, for his RDA & Tube, and last I heard, he was waiting on word from the patent office for something...)