Alright, so my thoughts already? What the hell is it?! Well, for starters it's a Taifun GT 4. Anyone that knows anything about the Taifun knows they're almost IMPOSSIBLE to get your hands on. Now I was going to do a shoot out between the KF5 and the GT4 but... decided it would be a slightly unfair comparison because the chamber in the GT4 is slightly wider than the stock KF5... so what did I do? I ordered a KF5 25mm of course! However, I will still give me thoughts on the GT4 and when the KF5 25mm comes in, then let the battle begin.
1st - I noticed right away is it's a heavy piece of steel and "glass".
2nd - The machining is impeccable. Is it perfect? No. At the price point people would be paying for an authentic, I would hope to find no scratches, scuffs, etc on it. However, mine does have some imperfections on it and they were there out of the box. A few light scratches, I'd be fine with, but I do have a couple of scratches on the juice flow ring that I didn't care for.
3rd - The "glass" section - although protected by the steel cage - is very thin and kind of feels a little like plastic. So handle with care. Speaking of tank section - when disassembling the tank section, unscrew the top half of the tank to get access to the glass insert, but BE CAREFUL FOR THE O RINGS! There are 2 very thin rings, one on top and one on the bottom. The one on the bottom stayed put, but the one up top did not and came off the top section of the tank. Finding the right placement of it was almost impossible. Also because of them being so thin, caution should be taken when handling them to prevent breaking them.
4th - Cleanliness. The tank came out of the package and prior to disassembling it to wash it, I noticed there was already some kind of liquid on it. Being factory sealed in the tube should have said to anyone that "Hey, I am a clean and fully functioning product". I don't know what it was, but I know it was a liquid of some sort. Be it remnants of a cleaning solution, VG, or just condensation, whatever... at that price point or any price point for that matter, there should be no rust, no dust, no machine oil, no residue, no metal shavings, no debris, etc. anywhere NEAR a product that's used - FOR ANYTHING - FOR ANY REASON.
5th - Build deck - this is a very, very, VERY unique thing and the airflow is what makes it what it is. The way the build deck is laid out is very different from what most of us would be used to. Me, I'm used to the Kayfun build decks and a few tanks that have postless decks. This one has 3 screws on each side (6 total) and the posts have cutouts for your wire so you build a coil, set it in there, pop your leads into the cutouts, and tighten it down with the little grub screws. It APPEARS to be forgiving with wicking as well, I did jam a bit more cotton down into the well, so that's a plus... no dry hits yet.
6th - Airflow - Can be set to restricted direct lung to MTL - has 3 fairly small cyclops slots on the adjustment ring, but only 2 slots on the deck itself. With 6 holes drilled into the deck to allow air into the chamber.
And that about summarizes it up. I'm going to run a few tanks through it, see how well it holds up, and in a week, I'll repost my experiences with it, let you all know if it's really worth the money, or if it's best used as a paperweight. After that week, I'll disassemble it again and show you all the pieces and parts I have seen on it as well. Until then, enjoy!
