Every once in a blue moon: ultrasonic cleaner. But after I pull out the wicks usually all I do is following these steps (this is with Nichrome 80 complex coil builds such as aliens),
- rinse with a bit of sparkling water,
- blow vigorously with my mouth to get most of the remaining water out,
- dry burn─gently at first so giving it enough time to evaporate the water while trying not to put too much stress on the coil build and also I keep giving it enough patience after that to gradually start to glow more evenly towards the legs of the coils (as the black soot once it smolders it takes some time to extinguish, by itself),
- let it cool down enough to avoid putting too much stress on the coil build the moment when I pour the water over it,
- rinse with sparkling water again, blow vigorously with my mouth again, dry burn again, let it cool down again, and keep repeating these steps a few more times if necessary,
- do a final rinse with tap water, and blow vigorously with my mouth again,
- dry the coils and the deck by gently pulsing at low wattage,
- let it cool down again, and always remember to measure the resistance before proceeding to rewick, etc.
The sparkling water is to remove all the soot that gets stuck in various locations between the core wires and the wrap wire that surrounds the core wires. I find that it gives better results compared to tap water and also it effectively eliminates the need to use a soft steel wire brush that can't reach between the core wires anyway and that only ends up marring the coil build giving it that metallic understaste so I never understood why so many people keep recommending a soft steel wire brush. (That is, apart from being able to sell brushes and then keep selling more coils faster after that...
)
As for how long it usually takes before I need to rewick. I vape at high wattage so my coils gunk up slower compared to your average low wattage vaper, and, this seems counter-intuitive perhaps, but nevertheless it's the whole truth... what's more, I never get black soot, nor even more than just a really very tiny little bit of dark brown gunking, anywhere on the inside of my RBAs and drip tips. This leads me to conclude high wattage vaping on decent quality complex coil builds is an excellent way to avoid significantly overheating the juice if you, like me, know how to fine tune everything in such a way that the positioning of the coils versus airflow, the air hole adjustment, the wicking job, etc., all are working sufficiently in balance with each other. Sufficiently here meaning you need to be capable, and willing─
especially willing, to learn from tried experience to be able to get there.
