DapperDab, I posted this on your other thread but I figured I'd share it on this one as well.
Sorry to bump an old thread but I just went through this same dilemma with my a couple buddies of mine. One of my friends has a Quave banger and I use it all the time, we were simply trying to figure out if the Borobook Banger is of the same quality or material. I ordered Two of the V3 Borobook bangers for under $100 and honestly they look just like the quave but they only heat slightly longer (10-15 second longer heat retention from the Borobook bangers vs the Quave club banger. (the materials look 100% identical, quave's joints are the main difference in my opinion) I've seen some alternative nails that just look awful, but Borobook bangers / domeless nails look real nice in person, totally a quality product when you hold it and examine it, and it does look very very similar to the QCB if thats the look your going for.
One major thing to note is My friend has to use his quave 10 seconds quicker then my Borobook V3 banger cools off. We both did heat stress tests (right when I bought my borobook banger I heated it up as hot as possible with two propane torches on full blast at the banger then dropped it in ice water to thermal shock it. To my amazement (and excitement) the borobook nail help up completely fine (if this were glass, pyrex etc it would of shattered, meaning if this was anything besides pure quartz it wouldn't withstand a thermal shock. I tried another heat test thinking maybe the first one did do some damage that I couldn't see and the second heat test would break it but again to my surprise. and it made it without a single problem. We did one single heat stress test on the QCB because its 1 month old and used but it survived as well.
One thing to note though is the gold labeling on the Quave comes off, it was totally fading away after we ISO cleaned it and did our heat stress test, I would definitely prefer a sandblasted label over those Bake on labels on the QCB's but I got the V3, I will have to try the Borobook diamond edition soon and do some tests on that sandblasting but I would imagine heat or ISO wouldn't affect it since its blasted into the quartz.
A friend of mine blows glass and has actually worked with quartz many times, he let us know that when torched any un-pure minerals within the quartz will glow. Essentially if you have a brand new quartz banger and torch it to heat it up, it should not glow or look like its getting hot, it should be completely transparent still. If there is aluminum, lead, etc these elements will glow and the rest of the quartz will say transparent. Well, guess what, the Borobook Banger passed this test without a single problem, My mothership swing even has slight specs that glow more then the Borobook Banger (not saying anything bad about mothership) but this swing that I had from them that costs $160 was literally less pure then the Borobook Banger.
I love to have the nicest of the nice and if a brand name earns that extra premium I'm happy to pay a brand name or designer names premium price IF ITS WORTH IT, in this case it is absolutely not worth it. So In conclusion I am as happy as can be with my V3 Borobook Banger and plan to order some of their other designs in the near future.
As for your second question as to why Quave's pricing is the way it is, no it has nothing to do with the materials. If you've ever taken a look at a Quave rig for sale they are over $10,000, that's not because the glass he uses is insanely quality or high priced (it is quality but thats not where the price comes from). Quave is an artist, (like Picasso was with cone temperate art) he is one of the top paid artists in the glass industry and If he's rigs can pull 5 figure price tags from collectors no problem then anything with his name on it will come with a high ticket. (Picasso paintings didn't use some kind of million dollar paint). Other factors may come into play such as manufacturing processes etc but the majority of the price hike comes from the name. Hope this info helps if you haven't gotten a banger yet if not I'm sure another FC user will have this same exact question in the future.
Happy Derbin!
~~NorCalOrganic
