How to clean vape parts and reclaim resin

Welcome to FC, mr. Bojanglez.

1. My SSV isn't much older than yours and it's also my first (electric) vaporizer, and I'm starting to notice that it varies per strain. My screens usually last over a month or so before I decide it's time to put in a new one, but the strain of marijuana I got now is absolutely terrible. I'm having a really hard time making a screen last more then 2 bowls, it's that saturated. After the normal scraping I always do I attach the wand with the handsfree adapter I normally don't use, put it a little higher then I normally do, and vape from the stuff that's still stuck to the screen through my waterbong for half an hour or so. After that procedure it's kind of usable again for a little while. Can't wait to turn the ABV from it in to a tincture though, and I'm gonna throw in the clogged up screens as well this time.

The best way to go about is to scrape it clean with the poker every time you empty a bowl, pull out the hose of the wand and blow it out from the end in which the hose is inserted or both as hard as you can. Make sure you also scrape around the edge of the screen where most of the build up occurs. I like to stir the bowl in between every or every other hit and also scrape the screen a lot when I'm doing that as well.

2. There are different ways to collect the hasj from the wand. The simplest way is to just scrape it out from the end the hose goes in with the poker, but you could also use alcohol to dissolve it and then let the alcohol evaporate so it'll leave you with just the goodies. If you prefer a clean looking wand every once in a while this is probably the way for you. I recommend doing some more reading about it if you want to try the last method since I don't have any experience with it myself. Just search for 'wandhash' using the FC search option or google.

http://www.fuckcombustion.com/viewtopic.php?id=509
http://www.fuckcombustion.com/viewtopic.php?id=975

im just confused about your post. you said you haven't smoked tobacco in 8 weeks because of your surfer?

if you are vaping tobacco in your surfer... DO NOT SCRAPE AND USE THE LEFTOVERS. you risk an overdose.

it is perfectly fine if you are just using weed in there but if you use tobacco in there as well, do not use the leftovers.

I am going to assume that you were vaping MJ, and not tobacco -- Scrape the wand hash with your poker and save it for a dry spell.

To be honest, I have not been that impressed with my wand hash and have often just cleaned my wand without reclaiming. Rubbing alcohol is your friend.

As for the screen -- this tip will be invaluable: every day or so, take the screen out and hold it using a pair of tweezers under a hot faucet. Then, fill the lid of your rubbing alcohol bottle with rubbing alcohol, place the screen in the Iso for a quick wash, retrieve with tweezers, and back under the water for a rinse. And it looks brand new.

i have also picked up a fine women's makeup brush for giving the screen a nice cleaning between washes. Another helpful tool.

Thanks for all the replies!

OhTheAgony - it sounds like we might be experiencing the same thing with saturation. What I am noticing is that if I suck on the wand with a brand new screen it's pretty much as effortless as breathing, but within a day or so it's dreadfully clogged. Going to have to assume it's something to do with the quality of what I'm smoking (which is great, but it is very sticky) as the screen gets VERY clogged, to the point of not being able to draw freely through it.

OO - thank you for bringing both the forum rules and that very useful post to my attention.

Gettin Lifted - I haven't smoked tobacco for 9 weeks (tomorrow!) due to the SSV. I have been smoking for 30 years or so, it's nice to be finally done with that!

Cleanfiend - thank you also for your input. I'm good with cleaning the screen (although I bought a bulk load a while back so I'm equally happy to just keep replacing them), I was just curious if others were seeing the same congestion I was.

thanks again to all that answered

So I read in a couple of different places to scrape the screen and take a high heat draw between bowls.
This helps a little but i found that popping the screen up and flipping it over works best. The bottom of the screen will be covered in wand hash. i usually just scrape it off and top my next bowl with it
Screens went from lasting 2days to at least 2weeks.

I've tried letting the sticky weed dry a little longer since my last posts, up to the point where it crumbles in to bits when you squeeze it to hard, it seems to help. Not filling the wand to much but filling it more often and vape little bowls instead also helps a bit. I'm almost done with my sticky stuff luckily, on to other weeds tomorrow for me

Good luck!

Can I reuse the abv that is in the bottom chamber of my my bong or is that .5 of avb a waste?

ok so i did a reclaim on a bottle of 99% iso that i have been using to clean my vapin equipment for the last year. it was a lovley dark honey / syrup colour. i filtered it before i evaporated it in a hot water bath on my porch. it took about 2 hours to evap off and leave me with the sticky but dry plate. the oil is much darker than i expected it to be (it's a dark brown, like molasses) I didn't weigh the amount i got, but i would guess it is coming in over a gram's worth of oil.

i put a little dab of it on a wand of fresh herb and good lord, I am going to have to be careful using this stuff! very very happy with the results.

the kief like looking stuff that remained in the coffee filters i used. that stuff is trash now? it looks like the low grade hash you get in the 2nd wash layer of the bubble hash bag kits.

Here's my story... and I am stickin' to it!--->
With my Silver Surfer, I do carefully go around the edge of the screen after each session(with the pick), and before the next filling, I stick a stiff tiny brush inside, and give it a once around. I then suck hard on the wand end( I never blow from the mouthpiece... this adds moisture into your tube and wand that will disrupt the ease of oil removal later). The dust in your mouth is soluble and inoffensive to swallow.
After a day or maybe two of much use, I seperate the wand, mouthiece and hose.
The Wand with wand facing down always.. I use a chopstick to poke the screen out (downard to avoid crumbs sticking to oils in wand)
The screen has a clay like substance caked onto it's edges. Use a small knife to carefully scrape that off onto a receptacle. (it is very like hashish- put it into a cigarette or "J").
take the screen in a tweezer, and ignite it. It is very flammable. let it burn and blow it out now and then and sniff the vapors. Eventually it will stop lighting. When it is cool.. hold it and brush it off with a toothbrush on both sides... It is like new.
Keeping wand upside down for now, get a q-tip and dip it in everclear... swab upward around where screen met the glass until it is clean.
You are now ready to clean. You can just clean as described or you can collect the oils as well.
-start with borasilicate glass mouthpiece. Pour a shot of everclear into it carefuly, using thumb and finger to keep either end closed. Shake it well. Set down mouthpiece. Then always manipulating things so you dont spill, you will carefully release the shot of everclear into the tubing, and carefully slowly raise one end and then the other so everclear has touched all inner walls a few times.
Finally, put thumb on the bottom end of wand and pour from tubing into wand. set down tubing and then use fingers to seal ends of wand and shake hard. If you pour that everclear shot onto a dish and leave it out away from flame, it will evaporate in a short time, and you can wipe a paper in it and roll with it or collect and use the oil other ways( it is clear and clean!)
Finishing the job
Using hot water- I put a few drops of dawn into the mouthpiece, and fill with hot water. I shake vigorously, and then with the soapy water, I repeat the steps above... but after wards, I rinse VERY well with hot water... each of the 3 parts.
Reassembly
I take hose outside, and holding one end, I spin it around forcefully a few times to get the water out.
I use my hand and seal the hose end against a vacuum cleaner if I have no clean hose or am in a hurry, and let the vaccuum suck through the tubing for 60 seconds. NOTE* The hose will smell fowl, and replacing it is the only way to eliminate this, but when you start reusing the hose and new oils coat the clean hose, it will not smell anymore- personally I replace my hose but save the old ones.
The glass is easy... I use my computer air sprayer for both pieces- takes a second.
dont forget after you put your screen back into the wand to pop the rounded side up so your herbs sit on a screen mound rather than in a screen depression. This is important for proper hot air circulation.
I hope this was helpful.

the reason why using less causes less issues is that using more past the saturation threshold yeilds an oversaturated air mixture, which causes alot of suspended vapor condensate which clogs the wand more than unsaturated or saturated air mixtures.

You sure are a Clean fiend!
About "wand hash"- As you vaporize, the weed closest to the screen is temporarily acting as a filter for the vapors passing through from the heat source. The weed therefore ( you notice when you stir) is moister than the weed at top. I personally try never to put well ground herb in.. I try to meticulously hand break up well dried buds into small chips and pieces the size of a chili seed.When you stir , the moistish vapor touched weed at the bottom would like to stick to the screen a bit. My best tip is to try to not blindly stir, and scrape the screen with the poker, as you round the edges. This done repeatedly between hits forces bits of dust through the screen where it gets locked around the edges... even a brushhing can just pack that moist dust down farther. This "wand hash", then actually sits and absorbs small amounts of passing vapor, which gives it that clay like texture.
When I use herb that is not too powdery, in hand broken fragments, and stir very carefully and do not "bust up" the "stirrings"... and then make as little actual "scrape" contact with the pick point I find only a fraction of the buildup.

scraping is all I usually do for the wand hash, But ISO should get things back to perfectly clean.

Screens are gonna clog pretty regularly, I just bought a ginormous pack of replacement screens, but yeah cleaning the screens keeps them going longer.

I use Iso (91%) only to throw stems and debris from raw unvaped weed. I collect forever and use as a liniment. I have recently been converted to Everclear for actual cleaning of "parts" in that there is never remaining bitterness or toxins even if not rinsed like crazy. ( I use it in my "vaped weed" reductions as well).
I am curious about using this screen from another product in my SSV handheld- it is a small basketlike insert from another vaporizer that I have never owned or used: Airizer Screen Pack. You sit it in the wand in addition to the existing screen. If anyone has tried this I would like your opinion.

Avoiding Wand Hash Buildup
Everyone has been talking about whether wand hash is worth smoking, and ways to collect it... ways to get rid of it and clean screens. I have a simple way to put off screen cleaning and wand hash buildup.
Sometimes I am going to put in a long day, with my SSV going for 10 hours. I want constant and consistant hits. I do NOT want to disturb my THC oil buildup in the glass wand at all, therefore I do not want to poke my screen out to stop during my "workout", and reinstall it.
Always keeping the wand facing down as in the image below, I aim a clean dry paintbrush upwards, angled to where screen meets glass. holding the paintbrush steady, I twist the wand in either direction. I angle brush the other way, and twist in opposite direction. I then lift the upside down wand to my lips and suck forecfully. Don't use air blower, it will disrupt the nice clean oil buildup- remember we are not trying to avoid oil buldup, just wand hash! Do NOT blow through toward from the tube end down... you will only add moisture to the screen from your breath, defeating the purpose of a dry brush cleaning!

The wand in this picture started clean and is now on about hour 7 of constant nonstop use. This is the 5th time I have repeated the dry, upside down "brush and suck" cleaning. (also- I am using carefully broken up tiny chips and pieces of herb and unbroken red hairs- no dust) You can see the clean oil buildup in the glass wand. In the shot below, you can see a screen, that is almost as good as new, with no residues built up in edges where glass touches screen.

I am not collecting wand hash on a day like this, I do not have the time to stop and clean and work on my screen. I want clear free flowing hits, and after hour 7 it looks like the next 3 will be a breeze (a breeze of thick rich vapor!)
I will still need to remove and clean or replace my screen... but not today!

On my SSV Whip, I'll push my tubing up toward the bowl and it pushes all the wand hash up. I do it after a session when the glass is warm but not too hot. Then I just pull the tubing back out and some wanshash will be on the tubing the rest will be easy to pick out with your stainless steel pick.

dude, check out post #1290
http://www.fuckcombustion.com/viewtopic.php?pid=112151#p112151

and u also said "dont forget after you put your screen back into the wand to pop the rounded side up so your herbs sit on a screen mound rather than in a screen depression. This is important for proper hot air circulation.". would it be hard for the herb to stay in place, with the screen shaping upwards instead of 'u' shaped? first time i heard of this as my screens are always 'u' shaped. is there a lot of difference?

Thanks for the reference on the screen. (and the link) I own a Vapir NO2, and have a few sets of the screens, so I will try your idea!
About the screen placement:
I was first curious when I got my SSV as the screen was placed as described. I popped it down.
I then got extra wands, and they all had screen mounded as I described.
I read the manual, which said... "after inserting screen, be sure to flip it over before popping it into place."
I left the screens and tried, and got much better hits. I called 7th Floor to ask , and was told that yes.. the screens should be mounded , and now I see why.
When you use the screen as a "u" shape... downward, the screen is already in contact with the glass at the edges(wand hash zone). This allows air flow through only the dead center of the wands orifice. When the screen is mounded upwards, there is only the screens very edge that faces downward that sits on the glass ( but is not nestled against it.
This allows hot air to flow through more area of the herb sitting in the wand.
My image here is crude, but you get the idea!

ok, vitolo, tq. nice drawing!

The duff you filtered out is ABV, and has oil on it, so you can vape it and it'll prolly get you high

mixing one tablespoon activated charcoal into the ISO then filtering that out may reduce the darkness of the oil as it'll remove some of the organics (ABV dust and water soluable crud)

so fun hearing you describe it's potentcy, "my god"

lol

cool

EDIT: just evaporated my own ISO, but onto ABV, so i can re-vape - i did not try the charcoal thing tho, not enough

Personally I leave the filtered particulate that has been caught to the trash. Much of it is plant particulate that I'd rather not reuse after contact with ISO (never been one to revape herb though so that may be part of this preference).

I don't reclaim very often but this was a batch in the works for a few months. The goo here is reclaimed from nothing but PD stems. Thin layers are lighter red-amber but it darkens up quick when its collected like this.

I usually vape this in PD stems, a little smear goes a long way. Not the best tasting stuff (missing the initial floral, sweet, etc. notes that a lot of flowers offer in a fresh bowl/pack for me) but the potency is certainly there. While it gives a mind-numbing number of hits sometimes I generally prefer to take a hit or two and send it to the duff jar for further recycling.

that's a beautiful shade of red,

but, i had some ISO in the sun and it turned red because of the sun and the duff in the iso, like sun-tea, does your's get much sun? (that was the one time my ISO was red)

Nope, not much sun here in the evaporating process (though I do live in a home with plenty of natural light the vessel wasn't in the sun). I don't think that sunlight was a factor as the color of the reclaim seemed to be consistent throughout the process.

THAT is an amazing shade of red, Hereatlast, thanks

my ISO that turned red in the sun kept getting so pretty i just left it there for three days, not thinking...it didn't have much potency, so let me be an example of how not to evaporate ISO, don't leave it in the sun. hahaha (THC degrades in sunlight)
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new / old idea revisited:

[h]using a cottonball as a bed for oil[/h]

WARNING: some cosmetic balls might have synthetic fibers (walmart's "puff balls") so don't use anything with synthetics, but I think natural fibers that are really clean could be used as a bed for oils. Others have written about this, it's nothing new: using a bit of cotton as a substrate for oil in a vape.

I thought toilet paper, being designed to disintegrate, and believing it to be of natural fibers, might be a substitute. I haven't Googled it's properties yet, so beware this advice...

Using Toilet Paper To Wipe Up Oil & Vape From
last night i took a one inch square of charmin ultra tissue paper with a few drops of ISO, and used it to wipe up the bowl I evaporated ISO in, leaving it to hang overnight, and tore it into bits and vaped it this morning. It had a very clean, out-of-bottle hash oil smell, and yielded several good tasting hits. I didn't push up the temp from where it usually sits, and the paper did not brown or darken significantly.

I was just going to wash that bowl...so my punch line, "i just got fuuucked up on toilet paper!"

VWFringe- Youre old idea revisited does work! (there is pure cotton at the pharmacy)
I have made tiny cotton balls that are pure cotton from the roll. I make the balls as small as a "peppercorn'.. or the head of a clove. I drip oil on it, and as I had once read, I put it in the stem of my Zap.. that worked well.
cotton was stiff when done, but not brown.
With my SSV I use a bed of herd, but did try a slightly larger cotton ball in a clean wand, with no herb. The taste was good.
I don't mess with oils enough to do this, and when I do "cleanup" I just make a "wad of hash".
This has been a good reminder!