New to building coils

[Carl Town]

Hi all
I have started to go on to rebuilibles and have just bought the recurve tea and bought a new mod which is the pulse 80 watt sampler and bought some pre made coils and got all my tools and as bag of cotton pads.I was asking some friends how much cotton to cut width and got 3 different answers.one told me tocutt 6mm wide another told me to cut 9 mm wide and the other told me to cut 12.7 'mm wide can anybody on here put us in the right direction if possible as I am new to all this please.
Thanks all

 

[djsvapour]

I'd have thought most standard coils with 3mm diameter (internal diameter) would take nearer 6mm of cotton than 9mm - that's 6mm before you roll it. 9mm is almost a centimeter and that seems quite a fat wick to me.

 

[suprtrkr]

If you are using cotton, the wick should slide freely through the coil, but fill it completely. With the atty base on the build stand, you should be able to pull the tails back and forth through the coil without the build stand sliding around on the table. Too much cotton in the coil will "choke" the wick and reduce juice flow; lower juice transport through the coil reduces evaporative cooling of the wick and it will burn. Too little cotton is also problematic; this causes pops and spitting. There's a learning curve involved and it's just going to take some practice. As a suggestion, cut more cotton than you know you need, and start "thinning" the wick until you get it to where it will slide back and forth. Then estimate how much of what you cut you wound up wasting, and cut thinner by about that much next time. Have patience and you'll get it. It's also helpful to build all your coils the same diameter; that way you can cut the same piece of cotton for each one.

In other news, consider trying rayon instead of cotton. Chemically they are identical, but rayon is man-made as opposed to growing in a field. In practice this means the fibers in rayon are continuous (they are extruded) through the length of the material. With natural cotton the fibers are much shorter. I believe rayon does a better job transporting juice and is much less susceptible to choking in the coil. With rayon, the coil can be pulled as full as you can get it, so there's greater margin for error and wicking becomes less problematic. Further-- I don't claim to understand why-- rayon seems to me to be less prone to burning. YMMV, but I love the stuff and would never go back to cotton.

 

[sonicbomb]

Wicking is tricky and important. Below are two videos of people wicking the recurve, have a look and see if that helps to give you pointers.

 

[stols001]

I never had much success with cotton and wicking and like the arbitrary number of MM and whatnot, so I'm going to do what I always do and recommend rayon, because that is what I know how to wick with.

It also has other advantages, plus it's longer lasting and can withstand higher heat and etc. So, I'm just going to mention it right quick and then flee because even thinking back to my measuring and cutting of cotton and how much depending on size of coil and etc. makes me want to flee and I'm sure you'll get tons of great advice anyway.

Anna

 

[Philabos]

I just started down this path myself with the Ares kit.
Must have been lucky on the first try with the cotton, atomizer seems to be working fine.
How long do you typically get with cotton before wicking again?

 

[Hawise]

I just started down this path myself with the Ares kit.
Must have been lucky on the first try with the cotton, atomizer seems to be working fine.
How long do you typically get with cotton before wicking again?

It varies considerably. Off hand, I'd say that anything from 1 day to 1 week would be within the normal range. It depends on how much you vape, the temperature you're vaping at, how 'gunky' your juice is (darker and sweeter juices tend to gunk up coils faster than lighter and/ or less sweet juices), and any number of other factors.

Rewick and clean your coil whenever you get the symptoms that made you change coils before. Most people find they have to rewick more often than they changed factory coils.

 

[Philabos]

It varies considerably. Off hand, I'd say that anything from 1 day to 1 week would be within the normal range. It depends on how much you vape, the temperature you're vaping at, how 'gunky' your juice is (darker and sweeter juices tend to gunk up coils faster than lighter and/ or less sweet juices), and any number of other factors.

Rewick and clean your coil whenever you get the symptoms that made you change coils before. Most people find they have to rewick more often than they changed factory coils.

Thanks, very helpful.
Since it's an MTL setup I am only at about 11w . My pre made coils usually last a very long time, but I will have to keep a closer eye on this.

 

[The Vaped Crusader]

Magic my friend. Good coils are always built with good sorcery. If you don't practice witchcraft now is a good time to start and practice your allegiance to the dark arts of coil building. Where the hell do you think kanthal comes from? The ground!

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Ye coil from SMOK is always trouble."

 

[zoiDman]

Hi all
I have started to go on to rebuilibles and have just bought the recurve tea and bought a new mod which is the pulse 80 watt sampler and bought some pre made coils and got all my tools and as bag of cotton pads.I was asking some friends how much cotton to cut width and got 3 different answers.one told me tocutt 6mm wide another told me to cut 9 mm wide and the other told me to cut 12.7 'mm wide can anybody on here put us in the right direction if possible as I am new to all this please.
Thanks all

It kinda takes some Experimentation to find the what works Best for you and your e-Liquid/Hardware/Wattage/Airflow/etc.

For me, if a Cut and then De-Skin a piece of Muji Cotton Pad can be pulled thru a Coil where I feel some Resistance but the Cotton doesn't want to Bunch Up and get Stuck, then that is the Right Amount.

For 3mm ID Coils, that is around 6mm. But it Varies slightly because the Thickness of the Muji Cotton Pads varies somewhat.

After you do it awhile, you can Tell when you pick up a Cotton Pad that the Pad is a Tad Thinner or Thicker then Average. And can make an Adjustment to how Wide of a Strip you cut.

 

[zoiDman]

Hi all
I have started to go on to rebuilibles and have just bought the recurve tea and bought a new mod which is the pulse 80 watt sampler and bought some pre made coils and got all my tools and as bag of cotton pads.I was asking some friends how much cotton to cut width and got 3 different answers.one told me tocutt 6mm wide another told me to cut 9 mm wide and the other told me to cut 12.7 'mm wide can anybody on here put us in the right direction if possible as I am new to all this please.
Thanks all

BTW - Welcome to the ECF.

 

[DaveP]

Wicking is an art, as The Vaped Crusader said.

It's really just something that you learn by doing, but guidelines from others help shorten the learning curve. Cotton Expands, Rayon Shrinks, when it's juiced up.

With Rayon you need to roll it quite a bit to shrink the size of the wick before you install it. If you have to twist it slightly to get it through the coil, then that's about right. It's going to shrink when it's juiced up.

Cotton, OTOH, swells when juice hits it, so cotton needs to be just slightly snug as you install it, as suprtrkr said.

 

[BrotherBob]

I am new to all this please.

Welcome and glad you joined.
Your getting great replies. Could read through:
Rayon wick, better flow, flavor, saturation and Nic Hit!
Rayon Wick - Better Flow, Flavor, Longevity, and Nic Hit!! - Pt.2

 

[djsvapour]

Of course, the exact amount of cotton certainly IS an art. Wick for an RDA or Squonk RDA and you can chuck it in with almost no science at all. Like me..!

Wick for an RDTA or RTA/RBA (something with a tank) and all kinds of things come into play. Some need a little less, some a little more, especially when the wick fills a channel and the juice-flow is finicky.

If the 'Recurve' is a RDA then you can probably get away with a job +/- 25% too much or too little cotton.

A well designed tank atomizer will tolerate some degree of inaccuracy. If not, it's not a good tank i.m.o. in terms of the design.

 

[suprtrkr]

It varies considerably. Off hand, I'd say that anything from 1 day to 1 week would be within the normal range. It depends on how much you vape, the temperature you're vaping at, how 'gunky' your juice is (darker and sweeter juices tend to gunk up coils faster than lighter and/ or less sweet juices), and any number of other factors.

Rewick and clean your coil whenever you get the symptoms that made you change coils before. Most people find they have to rewick more often than they changed factory coils.

To @Hawise I will add I can often reuse the coil when puling a wick. The repeated heating and cooling nature of vaping "work hardens" the coil wire, and it will eventually shear. But I have found if I build twists-- just what it sounds like, take two pieces of wire and twist them together tightly, then build your coil from that; Steam Engine has a setting for it-- I gain a) about 85% of the surface area improvement of Clapton wire, and b) a really robust coil that might last a year before it gives up the ghost.

As to rewicking... I do it when the flavor goes off, except in my Aromamizers. In those ridiculous (but wonderful) things, it's bottom fill and you have to look at the (gunky but still perfectly fine tasting) coil every time you fill it and wind up changing it because the cottons (raoyn!) look dirty.

Of course, I use rayon wicks exclusively (unless I am building an Old Skool SS mesh, or Bamboo, or Ceramic vertical wick in my Troy II dripper, which is anachronistic enough to encourage such indulgences) and rayon adds up to a lot of advance-sin-forgiveness in the wicking department.