somthing to play with:
as i have a couple of mesh-RBA's, i found a way to reuse wicks from them. i therefore cut a piece from the tank part of the used mesh in the size of 10 x (A) mm. (A) varies from 15 - 20 mm. i then take silica rope, in this example it's a thin one. i wrap the prerolled piece of mesh around the rope.

it does not have to be a solid wick. you just need 2 or 3 layers of mesh around the silica rope. and of course one can play with the thickness of the rope. main thing: the mesh is pre-oxidized.
in this example, i reused a coil out of 28 AWG Kanthal A1 that reads 1.6 ohm (don't ask me why i did that. probably i pre-wrapped it on the hex key that comes with the DID, it's quite a fat one) that's why it is fixed prerolled on the poles. normally i wrap it on the mesh first).

sorry, can't upload more pics. will split and continue....