Glass noob advice bong/bubbler? etc

[leeds]

Hi. Been vaporizing a good few month now and love it, can't believe I didn't find out about this sooner!
I've got a da Buddha vaporizer (love the big hits from this) and I am about to purchase a vapour genie coil. I only vape on a weekend and the vapour genie will only be used rarely. Looking for something that preferably can be used with both.
Sometimes my throat can get irritated (minor) so looking to pass the vapour through some water first. I try and limit how much I vape to some degree as I play football. I don't want a bong or a piece that is going to use vast amounts of weed, for this reason I've been looking at some of the smaller ehle bongs. Seems the ehle 100 can have problems with the water bubbling out so bong wise I've thought the ehle 250 with ice cube pinches.
But I know very little about bubblers and wondering if one of these would better suit my needs. I enjoy vaping with the whip like I'm smoking a joint, a small bubbler would virtually be the same I'm thinking but with the added benefit of cooling the vapour.
Price wise I'm looking cheap but don't want to buy something rubbish that won't last.
I'm in England so a lot of the american sites are out of the question (I also want it fairly quickly). A good site I've looked at which is mentioned on here a lot is edit.
Sorry for the long post, I've done a lot of searching through the forum and wanted to provide as much info as possible. Cheers in advance.

 

[leeds]

Update. Bubbler wise I've been looking at the weed star double bubble bong. Good value and seems to get good reviews.
So at moment its a choice between this and the ehle 250ml. Any advice?

 

[Richy]

Of the two you've picked I'd say imo that the ehle 250ml is better that the weedstar. Weed Star stuff is made in China most likely with sub-standard glass whereas the ehle is made in Germany with Schott glass which is very good quality.

The reason you want good quality glass is that the cheap stuff can have bubbles and imperfections in it which cause weakness in the glass and mean if it takes a knock it's much more likely to be damaging in these areas. Also the joints will be a lot stronger on the ehle and since these areas take fair amount of stress it's probably a good idea to have strong ones, many people have had the problem of a joint getting stuck so if it's strong your much less likely to break something when trying to detach it.

I am from the UK as well and I chose to buy my stuff from the USA because I found the selection of glass that wasn't manufactured in China to be very poor over here. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Chinese. It's just that all that stuff is manufactured in a way that they want to turn out as many pieces as possible for the lowest price which often results in a poor quality control and a low standard of materials to be used. Remember you only need to buy a good piece of glass once but cheap stuff has a habit of breaking unless you are very careful with it so you ending up spending more on multiple pieces in the long run.

Since you want something small maybe you should take a look into mini-bubblers as I'm guessing you want to cool and smooth the vapour down a little without diluting the taste. As a general rule of thumb the more you cool the vapour down the more you will lose taste so you want to try and find the balance that is right for you. Here are a few suggestions:

Leviathan are a brand than many people have bought from on FC and they make a both a micro bubbler and a mini bubbler.

The mini bubbler costs $130 plus $20 shipping I believe. It has a height of about 12 inches from the base to the top of the mouthpiece.

The micro bubbler costs $100 plus $15 shipping to the UK and has a height of about 6 or 7 inches from the base to the top of the mouthpiece. You can see some pictures of the micro bubbler if you click on this link. If you decide to purchase it you'll have to contact Takavor23 by clicking this link as it is not in the Leviathan flickr store.

Colie Glass more recently came to FC and all there stuff is made with either Schott or Simax glass which are both very high quality glasses. Some of the choices I'll suggest are ranging from $55(£36) to $97(£64) including shipping to the UK so you can see that you don't need to break the bank to get good quality glass.

They have recently released this new Mini Thick Bubbler which is only $40 plus $15 shipping to the UK. You will notice that the store page states the price as $50 but Colie Glass offer a 20% discount to all FC members but to get the discount you'll have to contact him either with the contact seller button on the right hand side of the store page or I can send you the email address if you wish.

A matching ashcatcher that can be attached to the Mini Thick Bubbler is also available. If you are not sure if you might want to cool the vapour down a little more then it might be a good option to get this at the same time as then you will have the option to use both together. You can purchase both pieces as the "Double Stack" with the FC discount for $67 plus $16 shipping to the UK.

If you want a little more volume then the Sidearm Thick Mini Showerhead may be a good choice which is $80 plus $17 shipping.

They also do a couple of different stemlines that have a slightly larger volume than what I have previously suggested. This 8-10 inch tall "Stemline Perc Bubbler" is $76 plus $14 shipping. This "9 inch Tall Down Gridded Stemline" is $68 plus $10 shipping.

I have never used a Da Buddha so I don't know whether it comes with an adapter so that you can use it with a water pipe but you should note that you cant just put the whip into the end of the water pipe because you need an airtight fit for it to work properly. Since you said you like using the whip you might want to consider getting a whip adapter so that you can attach the whip to the water pipe. I know Colie Glass do one and I imagine they will give you a discount if you purchase it at the same time as a water pipe and obviously this will save you a considerable amount on postage as well.

All of my suggestions have been based on the assumption that you seemed to be looking for a small piece. If you are looking for something bigger I'd recommend looking through both the stores for Leviathan and Colie Glass to see if there is anything you like. Also Jhan Pixel tends to specialise in larger pieces as well.

Please note that any text highlight in white is a link that you can click to reach the relevant page which will contain more information on the item discussed.

 

[leeds]

Richy, thanks a lot for the super detailed reply.
I like the look of that mini bubbler, only problem at the moment is that I need something before a festival at end of month so may have to opt for something else in the time being.
I will definitely come back to the colie glass though, seems reasonably priced.
Cheers.