Rayon wick, better flow, flavor, saturation and Nic Hit!

[HolmanGT]

Indeed I am (nic buzz that is). I'm actually having to put it down, which I don't want to be doing as it's working darn good. I should do my building in the afternoon, not before bedtime when a buzz isn't conducive for going to sleep. :face palm:

[edit: thanks for the picture compliment. I always think everyone else's pictures are way better than mine. Got lucky w/ these. Just using an iPhone camera. I think the blue background helps it focus a bit better w/o any other clutter in the background)

Can't say I didn't warn ya MikeE, that new coil puts you up around 20 watts.

 

[Kameleon]

I was also quite disappointed in Phil's video - while it's great he's getting the word about rayon out there, I think he's probably turned on a lot of people to KGD when with a bit more experience he probably would have found the rayon superior in all the tests!

The wicking test was just awful. So much rayon packed into that tiny hole, looks like he just squished a full thickness piece down until it would fit! No wonder it didn't wick well. I use full thickness in my 5/64 coils but before shoving it in there you'd better believe I've teased it out to at least three or four times its original length to align the fibers and reduce the density. I can wet the wick on one side of the coil and the other side will be wet before I can turn the thing around!

Makes me want to do a response video with his tests done right, but I don't have the equipment to do it justice.

 

[Sptz]

Just received my Delasco balls, it definitely reminds me more of silica than cotton. It looks and feels 100% fibres, what I did was I just unrolled a "ball" and took apart a couple of "wicks" wet my fingers rolled them up and wicked my fogger and so far so good! Will have to test it out further more

 

[JeremyR]

This is my rayon (from Melatonin bottle) setup after 6 days of heavy use. It's not pristine like a lot of the setups I've seen posted in hard used droppers. But - if this were any other wick material it would have been a gummed up crud ball of a coil. It's a 28g Kanthal, 2.3mm, 1.3Ω coil on a mech mod.
Since I can't 'up' the volts/watts on a mech, I build a new setup to try a higher watt vape after reading so many folks get better results at higher watts than they are were using. This one is 28g Kanthal, 2.0mm .85Ω coil. Also I trim the tails of the rayon to just meet the deck as well as timing about 1/3 to 1/2 the thickness coming out the ends of the coil.

I'm still experimenting, so any feedback on these builds is surely welcomed.

Both pics are looking pretty good mike. How'd it vape?

 

[TruSound]

Rayon is King in my book, stellar performance for weeks on end...if you haven't adopted Rayon you're leaving performance on the table without a doubt, in addition to performance, it does not burn, my MCR auto-fired this evening, long enough to burn my hand...but didn't burn the rayon at all.
Here's the rebuild after it cooled off, 26 gauge Kanthal - 2.5mm - 7 wrap and the Rayon .88ohm

 

[JeremyR]

I was also quite disappointed in Phil's video - while it's great he's getting the word about rayon out there, I think he's probably turned on a lot of people to KGD when with a bit more experience he probably would have found the rayon superior in all the tests!

The wicking test was just awful. So much rayon packed into that tiny hole, looks like he just squished a full thickness piece down until it would fit! No wonder it didn't wick well. I use full thickness in my 5/64 coils but before shoving it in there you'd better believe I've teased it out to at least three or four times its original length to align the fibers and reduce the density. I can wet the wick on one side of the coil and the other side will be wet before I can turn the thing around!

Makes me want to do a response video with his tests done right, but I don't have the equipment to do it justice.

I can agree with that. I think he only had the rayon less than a week. It's quite a bit different to work with than cotton. All said and done I think rayon will get more attention from the video... That shot with him holding the 3lb box up with a grin on his face was priceless.

 

[Sptz]

Quick question.
How are you guys separating your wick? Are you rolling it up like you would with cotton?

 

[JeremyR]

Just received my Delasco balls, it definitely reminds me more of silica than cotton. It looks and feels 100% fibres, what I did was I just unrolled a "ball" and took apart a couple of "wicks" wet my fingers rolled them up and wicked my fogger and so far so good! Will have to test it out further more

Sweet sptz!

What I've found is depending on your style you may nail the rayon right away or within 3 tries. If your close to the right density - its great for a few hours to a day and then it could start to go down hill, the rayon will be slightly loose. Well just wick it with a little bit more. If the flavor seems muted/off and it's kinda dry/harsh you've got too much, try a little bit less.

 

[PaulBHC]

I pull a foot off the box, then pull a couple of inches off the side, as wide as I need it. Smooth it a little like you would a bent cig. Don't twist it like cotton. I wet and twist the tip, cut off the frayed end, insert and pull.

 

[JeremyR]

Quick question.
How are you guys separating your wick? Are you rolling it up like you would with cotton?

On to my point on style it depends how you've made your cotton wicks. How tight are you rolling it, ect.

I don't roll the rayon at all. You may get it to work rolling it but I like the wick to be as loose in itself as possible for liquid transport on the fibers. You'll notice it has more spring back when dry. So I try to use that factor to maintain correct pressure against the coil. Keeping in mind the fibers come together more when fully saturated, but they resist compacting and still have the outward pressure. If you follow me.. Have you seen the video of how I wick with it?

See how yours goes, you'll know after a number of hours, if it continues to perform well your good enough to keep vaping it and find out how to fine tune for longevity over the next week of use.

 

[TruSound]

This handy little wick installer will likely get a laugh as it did elsewhere, but it works, keeps the Rayon very uniform and prevents it from getting hung up on the first coil. Moisten the wick tip with a couple drops and twist the first 1/4" of wick, .... the end of the installer up to the coil and pull the wick thru and cut where desired...works like a charm.

 

[JeremyR]

Tru, this rayon tool is awesome.
I thought it was before too, and it's obviously working great for you.

 

[atroph]

This handy little wick installer will likely get a laugh as it did elsewhere, but it works, keeps the Rayon very uniform and prevents it from getting hung up on the first coil. Moisten the wick tip with a couple drops and twist the first 1/4" of wick, .... the end of the installer up to the coil and pull the wick thru and cut where desired...works like a charm.

What is that?

Sent from my One using Tapatalk

 

[mnealtx]

Barrel of an ink pen...

 

[Jerms]

This handy little wick installer will likely get a laugh as it did elsewhere, but it works, keeps the Rayon very uniform and prevents it from getting hung up on the first coil. Moisten the wick tip with a couple drops and twist the first 1/4" of wick, .... the end of the installer up to the coil and pull the wick thru and cut where desired...works like a charm.

Well.. that's just silly..





.. says I before going to dig for a pen.

 

[TruSound]

Sometimes silly works Jerms, don't knock it till you've tried it, it keeps all those wispy rayon fibers in place...

LOL, I just spotted the second part of the silly comment.

The tip of the pen I used unscrews from the main tube, and I used a small tapered round file to open up the tip of the pen to just slightly smaller than the diameter of my coil.

Remove the pen tip, push about 1/2" of rayon into the tube and push the rest of the way thru with a thin screwdriver or whatever, twist just the tip of the rayon once thru and screw the cap on, once you fiddle with it a bit you'll get the hang of using it for a perfect wick.

Well.. that's just silly..





.. says I before going to dig for a pen.

 

[Jerms]

Sometimes silly works Jerms, don't knock it till you've tried it, it keeps all those wispy rayon fibers in place...

I was just having a laugh, I think it's a pretty smart idea. I already picked out a pen to use as a rayon dispenser.

 

[mssam]

I run horizontals @0.4ohm in my Ov2 easier to wick obviously but I thought it would wick better as well and not spill as the shoulders of the wick keep the Wells capped.

Don't you still or leak all your juice out running verts? Seems to me that there no advantage to vertical coils in that atty...

Well, i prefer horizontals, but i was responding to another user in reference to verts. Now, I've had no leaks doing verts with rayon on the origen v2. See, imo, the rayon is the the ultimate wicker. Meaning, when the rayon strand is in those wells, it just pulls the liquid up and I'm vaping until the well runs dry. Of course, the same is true with horizontals because both ends are into the well and the coil in the middle.

I've been playing with some other mediums in contrast to rayon, and so far, I prefer the rayon. The only draw back I've found to rayon is, it doesn't hold liquid like some other mediums. So, if you're dripping with a shallow well, it'll wick, but when the well runs dry thats it; vs some sorts of cotton will hold a little liquid even tho the well is dry. Nothing to write home to mom about, just an observation.

I love the origen v2, but I also love the feel of those pieces of rayon. The cotton feels more natural, softer, something, but the rayon feels smoother, more fluent. Makes sense correct?

 

[Tbev]

And now it's official! When Truman joins the club you know your in the right place! Glad your on board bro! Sporting the official "Wick Master Magic Wicking Wand"

 

[kgs-wy]

Well, I'm a convert to rayon, after tryin' ramie for a month, and seriously considering KGD cotton. I do like ramie, especially when I 'got' how to use it, but I have to say, I'm a fairly impatient vaper. The one-half to one full tank 'work in' period of ramie -- as well as the 1 to 2 day wait for the fiber to fully saturated and really allow the e-liquid flow -- was turning me off of it somewhat, but I'd have kept using it, since I find ramie to be a far superior wick as compared to organic cotton, especially when the ramie's broken in. After all, once ramie gets fully prepped and saturated, it's an amazing vape, has clear, uncolored flavor, with incredible wicking capabilities... Which you get right away with rayon. I thought about goin' with rayon first, but I'm too... Experimental I guess is the right term... For my own good at times... Ah, well, now I have plenty of ramie to share with a few friends that're interested in it, so it's all good...

Anyway, got my rayon the day before yesterday, but didn't crack open the box 'til today due to real life bitin' me on the .... So I read through a large section of the thread, found some good pics for the 'amount' to use in coils, then cracked open my Rose V2. Took out my old build (a 0.8Ω inverted V twin build), and decided, "Eh, what the hell!" and went about making pair of 0.8Ω parallel coils of 28 ga. Kanthal A-1. I placed my parallel coils in parallel for 0.4Ω total load. Wicked 'em after a li'l more research and watching both super_X_drifter and JeremyR's YouTube vids (followed a bit closer to JeremyR's than super's, since I'm using an RBA not a squonkin' RDA, but both vids were, in my opinion, solid tutorials) and put 'em in my Rose V2. Cut the rayon to length, saturated the wick, filled the tank, cracked the juice flow control to 1.5 turns, let it sit somewhere between 5 and 8 minutes, loaded it on my Hana V3, and took a vape...

And promptly realized the power was way, way, way too low for the build... Cranked it up to 25W, took a vape. Cracked open the juice flow to 2.25 turns, took a vape... Decent, about equal to a solidly done ramie build 'n' wick... Cranked up the wattage to 26W... OMFG... Good Life Vapor's Atom Bomb hasn't been this good before...

Now, to add a bit of disclosure, I dislike most mentholated vapes, even lightly mentholated ones, but I've always liked Atom Bomb. I was surprised that there was a bit more nuance in a rather 'simple' e-liquid than I'd noticed before, even with ramie. The flavors, at least for me, are more pronounced, but without any undue 'brightness' or coloring. The vape itself is nicely saturated, similar to, but better than, ramie, not too dry, not too wet, and was nicely warm but not hot... Vapor production is pretty damn good for what seems to be a rather high PG flavor (after steeping, I store my e-liquid in a rather cold refrigerator, and it still squeezes really easily, as opposed to higher VG liquids). As for the throat hit? I thought for the first half hour or hour I'd have to drop down to 6mg nicotine from my usual 12mg...

I've had this build in a Igo-T before, with the same wattage, using ramie, and the throat hit from it was easily tolerable. I'll grant you, the Rose V2 is a bit of a different animal from the Igo-T, but I've used other builds -- that were identical -- in both, and they match up at about 95% or so similarity, as far as the particulars of the vape. This build, with the rayon wick, hit me like a friggin' coal train runnin' into a Geo Metro at 60MPH. I got used to it though, and I'm happy I did.

So, as I type this, its Friday at 11:45 p.m. here, and I finished my build at about 7:30 p.m. I'll take my build out on Sunday sometime between 6 and 7 to check on it, for wick 'integrity', coil and wick 'gunking', etc. With the Rose V2's 3.7mL tank, and presuming I keep up with my normal daily vaping, that should put a little over 22mL through this wick and coil setup. I don't know if I'll stick with the Atom Bomb or switch to one of the other flavors I have (probably GLV's El Kamino or Lotus' Valhalla if I do switch), but at least I'll be able to give everyone that's interested in -- or on the fence -- about rayon a bit more information to chew on, which is always a good thing, at least in my opinion.

Anyway, sorry for the long winded post, and keep on vapin', everyone!

-Laters...!
kgs-wy