Hello,
I do not know if I am allowed to post to this forum as I am only on page 181 after about a month of reading! I for one agree
with others that this is far too long. I approve (like my approval was needed!!) of the wiki though.
I have had my solo for about 3 weeks now and like it quite a bit coming from the iolite. I got fed up with the noise of the thing.
I do find the 'oven' to be on the small side and this means I reload quite often. I also find the vapor quite hot and dry leading to
coughing fits. K.
Hey kigrass,
As crazy as it sounds for this no-brainer black-coke-can, after owning it for 6 months or so, I'm still tweaking my method. You can just turn it on and get fat vapor. But learning the speed of your airflow pull turns out to be an important way to protect heat from slamming the back of your throat. I'm a singer and have thought a lot on this topic. A water pipe is surely the right way to cool the vapor, get bigger hits without coughing, and be able to blast the herbs with hotter vapor without burning (really it's almost impossible to burn with the solo if the herb doesn't touch the heating element
Long and short, I ran into the same issues when I first got my solo and thought I required a water pipe and I do use one all the time. But I've recently been surprised that I really don't have any issues at all with too much heat on the throat. Of course, there is the run of the mill issue that folks have in which the vapor continues to expand in the lung giving a bigger hit than expected. Important points.
1) Priming the herbs with heat prior to each pull (say for 10-15 seconds and then blow that out prior to the hit).
2) Using a slow steady hit that only builds up to the point that you might get to much heat and then manually keeping it below there with your airflow.
3) Lift up your stem. if you feel things getting hot, lift up your stem like the log vapers do (find a video of their method on a water-piece. Lifting the stem is vital to being able to control the heat and make the herbs last.
You may find that after using the solo with the water piece (which is awesome btw) for a while you'll find yourself drifting back to going without. Why would you want to go without? Flavor and less filtration of the valuable vapor you are producing. And if you don't have one in the mail... you must (must) (haveto) get one of Ed's stems for portability and general awesomeness.
JDR
EDIT: Oh and Ed's stems double as a 14mm male adapter.