Any chance you could post some photos of the wpa connecting to the Anvil? I don't know why but I can't figure out how to do it!After using it exclusively for a little under two weeks I thought I'd give my thoughts on the WPA.
Like others have mentioned before, maintenance is a breeze. I have to disassemble and clean my native stem units once every 3-4 days because I start to get reclaim dripping into my glass pieces, but with the WPA a quick wipe at the bottom of the joint every so often is much easier to do. Outside of the the occasional wiping of reclaim, I haven't felt the need to disassemble and clean since I started using it. By this point with the native stem I would have had to clean it at least once, most likely twice. So in that regard, I think it's worth it for the reduction in maintenance alone.
Air flow is wide open and I generally use the native stem set the same way so it hasn't been a problem personally. I guess if more restriction is required, a drop-down/ash catcher, a whip or several pieces in conjunction can be used to get to your desired resistance level. Not ideal, but it will do the job I think.
Comparing it to the USA, it seems like it should be possible to adapt the airflow control it has to the WPA as well, at least on visual inspection. Maybe for v2?
I’m not sure it needs it though. I’m admittedly biased because this is my preferred air flow setting, but it works fantastic as is imo.
This is more or less my use case too. I'm pretty sure this is how I'm going to be using the Anvil for the most part going forward. There definitely will be some native sessions, but I see the WPA featuring in the rotation heavily and basically supplanting the native stem.
I know you got a response but just as further confirmation, I ordered a WPA along with the USA during the first drop and I received my order with the silver snap ring so they've definitely been shipping them out at least as recently as October 5th when mine was dispatched.
Speaking of, the snap ring is actually one of the few issues that I do have with the WPA. None are show stoppers, they're mostly just things I'm unaccustomed to due to the change in form factor.
The ring stays cool and keeps heat away very well, but the exterior rubber portion is only about 3mm wide so it sometimes feels a little wobbly between my fingers as I'm lifting it out of the joint or just holding it.
The unit is very compact, but an added complication as a result is that there's naturally less surface area where you can safely grip the unit. Because of this, the aforementioned build up underneath starts to become a bit of an issue. It's great for ease of maintenance, but I find myself trying to avoid the hot oven on one end while also trying to prevent getting reclaim on my hands from the other. You always had to worry about the heat of course, but getting reclaim on my hands during use was never really a concern previously. Also playing into this is the larger 18mm joint making the whole thing a little bottom-heavy. I assume this won't feel as pronounced with the 14mm unit but as it is, I'm finding it a little awkward to handle. I’m also probably affected by the muscle memory I’ve developed from the countless native stem sessions I've had over the last 10 months.
In retrospect I think I would have preferred purchasing the 14mm unit with the Teflon adapter. Generally I prefer to use as few adapters and add-ons as possible, so if there's a solution that minimizes the need for one I'll usually explore that direction first for the sake of simplicity. In this case however, I'm not too crazy about the metal on glass contact. The o-rings create a perfect seal and reduce the amount of direct contact, but I don't think it's possible to eliminate it completely. Not a huge deal as my pieces are nothing special and I still plan on using the 18mm even after I purchase a 14mm unit going forward. It might be something to consider for people with expensive glass though. Besides that, I think the 14mm WPA will work really well with those Rio configurations using the native stems that were posted a few pages back.
All in all, it's a solid adapter and at the risk of sounding like even more of a shill I'd still say that the WPA kit represents pretty fantastic value on its own, but even more so when you consider other vapes in a similar price range like the IQC, Tera, VonG and Pax 3.
On a bit of a different note, this year my vapes are going to participate in Halloween. They've all decided to dress up as other vapes: Anvil is going as a Supreme, the VapCap as an Anvil and for some unknown reason, the Milaana is strangely confident that it makes a convincing Nomad.
I'm kicking myself for not thinking of setting up the USA heat test I did earlier with the unit connected to the Supreme stand like this in the first place. It would have been so much easier to perform the test and to record.
For anyone curious, I also tried using the VapCap tip on the Anvil body, only I used it with the XL mouthpiece and 2 intercoolers. It worked well and produced very comfortably cooled vapour, but I don't think it would be worth the effort to acquire the parts specifically to use with a VapCap. I had to cut a larger o-ring to size in order to get the tip to fit properly. It was a fun novelty, but ultimately is probably not really worth using regularly given the plethora of superior native options available for the VapCap.
If I take the oven off and connect that directly, the air intake is wide open... is that correct?
