My Plusplusglass bowl came and it doesn't work
, the top is too big so the Shovelhead doesn't fit over top. I'll see what the seller says but that's unfortuantely par for the course for my recent china glass purchases. I bought a different piece (bong base) from lumin88 that is absolute garbage and has air leaks on the joints; I would highly recommend against. My other DHGate glass bowls from Stevenlmz79 arrived and I didn't try them out yet but they look ok, the bowls are a little crooked but at least they were half the price? The plusplusglass bowl has a much better looking glass screen and overall looks better minus not being able to actually function. I also had some beracky quartz carving spinner caps from beyond1688 (DHGate) show up that I had ordered after reading they were a good (possibly claimed as better iirc) than the CH carb cap. If the cost is that much of an issue then I guess they're better than not having a carb cap but I'd consider them a waste of money and would not recommend. They don't seem to be worth the trouble as they don't sit flush covering the top of the dish like the CH carb cap does. Essentially there's a giant gap around the outside of the dish. I have to be very careful centering it on the dish nut and it will fall off easily unless I hold it during my hit or don't bump it.
Now to the good stuff.
My 420 CH order had a VROD head/SiC dish, 20mm coil, enail handle, Shovelhead, 18mm and 14mm Ti downstem, carb cap/dab scoop, larger round stand, glass CH bowl, PAX scoop, and 1 extra titanium screen in each size. As I said in my original post they arrived in absolutely immaculate, OCD passable condition which never seems to be the case for my purchases so I was very impressed from the moment it arrived. I already had an Auber RDK 300b for my Elev8r so I was set on that front.
I'll just say, I don't regret buying a single piece of my CH order. I'm really enjoying the glass and titanium bowls and how much of a difference the two materials have on a session. I'm finding the glass bowl has better flavour but marginally slower extraction because of less conduction heating compared to the Shovelhead. For my first session of the day, the smaller bowl size (because of the thicker glass walls) is a nice option but I can still blast through a bowl (or two) pretty quickly if needed. The only thing I don't like about the glass bowl is that the screen doesn't "lock" in at all so I have be careful stirring (habit) or I can flip the load and also the screen comes out when I dump the bowl. Both are a minor inconvenience.
The Shovelhead on the other hand continues to bring me to my knees every night with its slightly larger capacity and fast extraction from the added conduction heating. There is no hot spotting with the carb cap on either bowl but when removed I start to get some uneven heating on the top layer so I always use the cap. With the depth of the Shovelhead I've been stirring when I pack it full as the top layer gets more of the heat so even though there's no hot spotting on that layer it still receives the brunt of the heat. I've unintentionally not stirred and everything works out in the end but I prefer a stir to preserve flavour. If I pack less I don't bother stirring. A small complaint I have with the Showerhead is that the piece that tightens it to the downstem is a little finicky as the rubber starts to move when I try to really tighten it down. I picked up the Shovelhead one day and it spun loose and dumped my AVB and downstem out so I make sure it's secured really well now.
I'm very impressed with how clean the VROD and even Shovelhead stay. This is a huge benefit of titanium from my experience so far which also applies to the screens which stay cleaner than my stainless steel screens.Maybe because I leave my VROD on for hours at a time it helps keep things clean? Titanium seems to be superior in that regard plus I don't find the taste is impacted as much as using stainless or aluminum but that could just be me. The screens are heavy duty for sure, I'm glad I grabbed extras even though I haven't put them to use yet.
The cap is a necessity for the VROD as I said before. My only complaint, which is my fault, is that the wood will start to darken near the carb cap when I space and leave the cap on top of the VROD while it's turned on. I removed the wood off and gave it a light sanding to fix it back up which keeps the darkening of the lines in the grain which does look really nice.
A stand is a necessity for the VROD and I'm glad I went with the larger stand with room for all my parts. I have not been using the debowler yet for actually debowling but I like having some space to store parts in that area so I don't regret the larger stand. I need to carve down one of my S&B brushes to fit in one the many holes and I'd also like to grab a couple more debowler spikes to hold extra bowls and downstems more securely.
I've wanted a metal scoop for a while and I'm glad I picked up the Pax loading tool which I've been using on a bunch of vapes. I have a plastic funnel that I use to load the bowls when they're cool but once there's some heat present the metal scoop is a safer choice. It also sits perfectly in one of the many holes on the stand.
I have to play around with my temperature some more to see how much lower I can go but 300°C/572°F has been a good temperature for me and then I'll sometimes boost it a little but extraction is already so fast that I don't really need to.
The VROD is a TRUE heavy hitter unchallenged by most. This vape will rip your face off. It's not a microdoser by any means and if that's what you're looking for there are better alternatives. That's not to say it isn't possible but it's overkill for that job. It's a much safer route than any of the ball vape mods which have the risk of burning hot balls going everywhere albeit the open nature of the VROD is still a potential burn hazard. I'm going to keep cycling through my desktops but the VROD is tied for my #1 overall desktop spot at the moment. There is a reason so many say this is a VAS ending device, it's just that good.
