I didn't know that I had to. All the videos end after the initial set up, and they are very well done, especially Dinos, but I didn't know I had to prime anything. I noticed the silica wick where the
coils are wrapped is almost black in color now. Is this normal?
Yes, that is normal and also over time you will see it build up on the wick. The nice part is you can run that under water, fire, repeat until the buildup comes off. The wicks will last a good long while.
I saw you mentioned overwicking, could it be you didn't take a 1 or 2 second drag to remove all the vapor from the chamber?
As to the silica coming apart, that happens with the type of silica you have (and I have for the LavaGen). What I find helps is torching that silica really good before making a cut. It doesn't seem to unravel as fast if torched first. Plus, I always cut a lot longer piece of silica than needed (when using that type silica). It also helps if you spin the silica in rather than just trying to push it through the wick hole. If you watch the silica you can tell if you're unwinding it so spin it the opposite way. If you're spinning it while pushing it through it will help to keep that from unravelling
Another little note, when a wick is first installed it takes some time to break in properly. The amount of time varies from a few hours to a day or two. It just gets better over a period of time.
What you could do before adding juice to the tank is put vg/pg on the top part of the wick at the coil and fire that off a few times. Then add your juice to the tank and a little bit to the wick. It's a fairly decent way to help season the wick along.
Above all, don't give up, if Grammie can do it, you can too! It just takes some time and practice.
