Well, On my Kayfun I like to use about 28 gauge kanthal in mine with cotton. As long as the cotton is touching the bottom deck without covering the
juice channels, it's fine. I believe the
juice comes right up to the deck, but not on the deck when in normal use, but when you inhale, it provides just slight enough pressure to pull some juice on to the top deck and wick up. If the wick is covering the juice channel, it will wick up juice all the time, and cause flooding. There is also a major concern when it comes to having proper seals. If you have even the slightest seal leak in the kayfun, it will cause flooding. The biggest culprit of that, is the O-ring inside the top cap that seals off the chimney. It doesn't fit %100 and needs some finegaling when putting it back together to get the full vacuum seal. Once setup though, it works flawless.
I don't about the russian's air inlet, but you might want to try putting your finger over the airhole and doing a quick puff. This should draw a bit more juice to the wick, but could also flood it if not carefull. It could be that it's wetting the wick, but not wetting it enough.
The second thing to look out for is your PG/VG mixture. IF you have a heavy VG liquid, it might not be pulling enough juice in. I use a 30/70 mix for juice (pg/vg), so it's thick, but not too thick.
Lastly, it oculd be the coil setup. I am assuming you're a good coil builder, so here is what I use: I use 28 gauge wire wrapped at .8 to 1.0 ohms on my mech mod... 32 gauge 2.0 ohms for my 15 watt aVamos.
It's not a cloud chaser, but it is a tonne of flavor.
