Wick materials. Safe vs dangerous.

[studiovap]

Cotton balls are the same as the rolled cotton, if 100% and sterile, and no other nasties added. I get that bloat too with cotton balls and gennys, it just does not like being vertical. The pads I have are 100% cotton, but they have been heat treated and compressed on the outside and are puffy on the inside. While they initially have good structure and stay in place in gennys, they eventually bloat up and go to cotton heaven just like the other stuff. (for me at least)

Hey mate, yes I had another play with cotton (rolled) in my RSST, U-wick, micro coil, cotton birdhouse and all, still a major fail.
However in my Octopus dripper, a 0.9Ohm tooth pick/cocktail stick sized micro/mini coil is going great.
The RSST is now back to the 1 Ohm 6wrap tooth pick/cocktail stick sized micro/mini coil on unoxidised #200 U-wick and going great, good flavor very fast response and great vapor all comparable to my 0.7 Ohm previos setups at least so far.
I always wonder with these set-ups what folks are accepting as satisfactory vapor and flavor production, I think I am a demanding vaper and will find the weakness in any wick coil set-up very quickly, my mech mods are all tuned to very low voltage drop, and my coils are always sub Ohm. The ceramic 60 grit white Al/Ox you put me onto was ok( insert: geat for medium wattage vaper), but still only ok. I was using 32g kanthal double parralel coils ( run like twisted, without being twisted), and that enabled a good contact with the wick plus good heat distribustion, plus easy wrapping and low resistance, I settled on a 2.8mm wick with 3 dual wraps comming in around 0.8-0.9 Ohms in the DID std. Like I said ok, but cannot compete with un ox #200 Uey at high wattage.
It will be interesting to see how the vape on the Ithaka holds up wih the varios setups and wick materials I am planning to trial in it.
Did I hear you have become a Reonaught convertor?

 

[gdeal]

Hey mate, yes I had another play with cotton (rolled) in my RSST, U-wick, micro coil, cotton birdhouse and all, still a major fail.
However in my Octopus dripper, a 0.9Ohm tooth pick/cocktail stick sized micro/mini coil is going great.
The RSST is now back to the 1 Ohm 6wrap tooth pick/cocktail stick sized micro/mini coil on unoxidised #200 U-wick and going great, good flavor very fast response and great vapor all comparable to my 0.7 Ohm previos setups at least so far.
I always wonder with these set-ups what folks are accepting as satisfactory vapor and flavor production, I think I am a demanding vaper and will find the weakness in any wick coil set-up very quickly, my mech mods are all tuned to very low voltage drop, and my coils are always sub Ohm. The ceramic 60 grit white Al/Ox you put me onto was ok( insert: geat for medium wattage vaper), but still only ok. I was using 32g kanthal double parralel coils ( run like twisted, without being twisted), and that enabled a good contact with the wick plus good heat distribustion, plus easy wrapping and low resistance, I settled on a 2.8mm wick with 3 dual wraps comming in around 0.8-0.9 Ohms in the DID std. Like I said ok, but cannot compete with un ox #200 Uey at high wattage.
It will be interesting to see how the vape on the Ithaka holds up wih the varios setups and wick materials I am planning to trial in it.
Did I hear you have become a Reonaught convertor?

I wonder if that 60grit is the same as we are using? I am getting stellar results with sub ohm coils. On the 1/8 and above wicks, I am using ribbon with good results. Tonight, I just put together a hybrid 2mm white ceramic micro-coil with 26g for .8ohms in a dripper. Its got cotton tails to get the juice off the base to the ceramic. The setup is a beast! Its in a stock phoenix v5 (fasttech) and I am talking thick vapor like take your shirt off in a humid poorly lit room and upload a youtube video thing with out the post vape choking and coughing....hang on a second...heres a pic.



Yes, got a Reo, but wouldn't consider myself a Reonaught. I have been putting it thought the paces recently, but its part of the rotation with other mechanical and VVs.

I gotta say the device itself does work really well with micro-coils and cotton even with a bit more than usual vDrop. It really is a solid low maintenance easy to use/setup device. Really good when you are out and cant be in a position to mess with coils, flooding or breaking out a hypo to fill a tank...The smaller vape chamber of the RM2 is a big plus too. I can see why people just stick with them.

I have a bunch of #200 mesh, I guess I need to try that in a micro-genny low-ohm set. Thanks.

 

[MikeE3]

Tonight, I just put together a hybrid 2mm white ceramic micro-coil with 26g for .8ohms in a dripper. Its got cotton tails to get the juice off the base to the ceramic. The setup is a beast! Its in a stock phoenix v5 (fasttech) and I am talking thick vapor like take your shirt off in a humid poorly lit room and upload a youtube video thing with out the post vape choking and coughing....hang on a second...heres a pic.

View attachment 236273

Nice! Not like I don't have 'pieces' to try something like this. Did you just lay the cotton along the ceramic and 'wrap'? Did you pull the coil tight to the ceramic or just enough to compress the cotton around the ceramic wick.

 

[gdeal]

Nice! Not like I don't have 'pieces' to try something like this. Did you just lay the cotton along the ceramic and 'wrap'? Did you pull the coil tight to the ceramic or just enough to compress the cotton around the ceramic wick.

The ceramic is hot-wrapped and then thin rolled up cotton was wrapped once around the end.

Here is a before cotton pic.

 

[Lee1111]

Only 100 more pages to go. I'm in the cotton part of the thread if anyone wants to update me aka cliff notes style.

 

[TomCatt]

Only 100 more pages to go. I'm in the cotton part of the thread if anyone wants to update me aka cliff notes style.

Check out the ancient Cotton Wick Wiki link in my signature

 

[Lee1111]

Check out the ancient Cotton Wick Wiki link in my signature

I've pretty much gathered everything that you've got listed in the wiki in the first 20 pages... What page should I start on for the more current material?

 

[hildicat]

I've pretty much gathered everything that you've got listed in the wiki in the first 20 pages... What page should I start on for the more current material?

I think the current winners are rolled sterile cotton, organic cotton balls, bamboo crochet thread, and hemp twine. These seem to all perform about the same, with the hemp probably lasting longer, but it comes down to personal preference.

I settled on the cotton balls after trying all of those mentioned.


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[subver]

I just started using Martha Stewart cotton hemp yarn and am absolutely loving it.. great taste, great wicking with high VG juice, no flooding or dry burns. I boiled it for 10 minutes, but still not sure of the safety of it - it doesn't have any synthetic fibers or anything like that.

Interested in trying hemp twine if it's better than this - is there a good source for it? I saw BJ posted this link for hemp twine - is this still what you guys are using?

How is it with wicking high VG juices?

 

[Alexander Mundy]

I would like to get some cotton thread to wrap around mesh.
I can get this locally:

White Coats Cotton Machine Quilting Thread is a mercerized extra long staple Egyptian Giza cotton thread that is smooth and lustrous. For machine quilting on natural fiber woven fabrics. Ideal for smaller projects like quilted crafts, wall hangings, and pillows. 100% mercerized cotton.

I looked up mercerized on Wikipedia Mercerised cotton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The modern production method for mercerised cotton, also known as "pearl" or "pearle" cotton, gives cotton thread (or cotton-covered thread with a polyester core) a sodium hydroxide bath that is then neutralized with an acid bath"

Could this be used if boiled first?
Maybe it would be better to say should this be used if boiled first?

 

[xpen]

That ebay link is obsolete by now, the vendor decided to give up with ebay and moved on to Etsy.com IIRC. Have a look a few pages back, BJ did post the exact new coordinates for them

Excellent capillarity even with pure VG, no problems there ;-)

I just started using Martha Stewart cotton hemp yarn and am absolutely loving it.. great taste, great wicking with high VG juice, no flooding or dry burns. I boiled it for 10 minutes, but still not sure of the safety of it - it doesn't have any synthetic fibers or anything like that.

Interested in trying hemp twine if it's better than this - is there a good source for it? I saw BJ posted this link for hemp twine - is this still what you guys are using?

How is it with wicking high VG juices?

 

[subver]

Yup I found the link She is out of stock at the moment but said in 2-3 weeks the hemp wicks will be available again

 

[bluegrasslover]

I would like to get some cotton thread to wrap around mesh.
I can get this locally:

White Coats Cotton Machine Quilting Thread is a mercerized extra long staple Egyptian Giza cotton thread that is smooth and lustrous. For machine quilting on natural fiber woven fabrics. Ideal for smaller projects like quilted crafts, wall hangings, and pillows. 100% mercerized cotton.

I looked up mercerized on Wikipedia Mercerised cotton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The modern production method for cotton, also known as "pearl" or "pearle" cotton, gives cotton thread (or cotton-c mercerised overed thread with a polyester core) a sodium hydroxide bath that is then neutralized with an acid bath"

Could this be used if boiled first?
Maybe it would be better to say should this be used if boiled first?

Search this thread for mercerised

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[pokerplaya]

Hello everyone I PM Cyrus a few days ago with the question on why my cotton ball wick turns black. This post is directed to anyone so please feel free to chime in. This is my setup. I have an RDA clone of the Smoktech Octopus with a 4 wrap coil 32ga kanthal 2.2 ohms vaping at 4.2v The wick is 100% organic cotton balls from Walgreens.

Cyrus you said "Sometimes the cotton will vape fine but still be a tad too tight, leading to a charred wick (you won't taste it though, but the wick will go to the trash a lot faster)."

I think this may be the case here. I took some cotton and rolled it into a wick just small enough to thread to the other side of the coil. Then with some tweezers I pulled it through until it wouldn't thread thru anymore...trimmed it and called it good. I didn't leave hardly any room for the expansion of the wick once it was juiced up. I'm a noob to this whole rebuilding thing.



So what do you all think, is this too tight? I was also asked what color the juice was. It's Malibu Pineapple from Vermillion River.



It vapes well. I get no burnt taste at all. This is the second build I've done on this RDA. The first one after a day of vaping the wick was completely black. I pulled that wick out and ran it under the kitchen tap and the wick went back to white except where the coil was. You could see exactly where the wraps were as it was a very light brown. I would greatly appreciate anyone's feedback. Thanks

 

[BJ43]

The browning under the coil is normal charring, all the rest is carbon residue from the sugars in your juice. Same stuff that feeds back into our gennies and darkens the juice. Also the same stuff that darkens all the carto fillers.

 

[pokerplaya]

So basicly this is normal, safe to vape, and I shouldn't get freaked out by it. Just change the wick at my earliest convenience when it turns black?

The browning under the coil is normal charring, all the rest is carbon residue from the sugars in your juice. Same stuff that feeds back into our gennies and darkens the juice. Also the same stuff that darkens all the carto fillers.

 

[BJ43]

Yep....... Here are my flavor wicks after a few days.

So basicly this is normal, safe to vape, and I shouldn't get freaked out by it. Just change the wick at my earliest convenience when it turns black?

 

[pokerplaya]

Thanks BJ

I just got a hold of some 28ga so I'm going to try to wrap a coil with that tonight. Not too sure if the thicker wire will work on this mini RDA but I'm going to try. Thanks again.

 

[ProCision]

I have been using this in all my ProTanks.

Square Braided 100 Cotton Wick 6 0 4 0 2 0 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 | eBay

I have yet to make any new coils since I made the 4 for my 4 protanks. That was over a month ago. A silica wick was only lasting me 3-4 days before it was clogged up and not giving me the vape I want.

I boil it for 15 min. then dry and boil again for 15 min.

 

[Alexander Mundy]

I have been using this in all my ProTanks.

Square Braided 100 Cotton Wick 6 0 4 0 2 0 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 | eBay

I have yet to make any new coils since I made the 4 for my 4 protanks. That was over a month ago. A silica wick was only lasting me 3-4 days before it was clogged up and not giving me the vape I want.

I boil it for 15 min. then dry and boil again for 15 min.

Interesting.
I just contacted the seller to see if they have any closeup pictures of the braiding.
Might have to try it.

Does it swell when soaked with liquid?