I’ve been an occasional FC reader for years, but it wasn’t until I bought the FP that I really wanted to join the conversation. I finally finished reading this entire thread a few days ago, so I can finally talk about new developments while understanding the FP and thread history.
Right now I’m using the shovelhead and panhead capped mostly at 525, 555 or 585, and uncapped at 616 or 666. To me the taste is best at the lower end, and it suffers significantly in the higher 600s, but it does get denser faster!
There’s a lot more to say about it, but I’ll save it for future posts.
I was about to tag you to get NV’s thoughts on the recent bowl discussions, so thanks for letting us know what you’re looking at!
Overall I like the design, even if I have to buy another nut, but I do have a couple of small reservations and questions.
1. A lot of people would like to actually see the contents of the bowl in use; is it tall enough to see under the nut right now?
Would making it taller significantly hurt performance?
2. It seems that many people take breaking these bowls, especially the handles, as an inevitability. I know you can’t completely fix that, but would maybe a metal band around the middle with a screw-in handle be worth considering to reduce the amount of breakage?
It might take a bit of creative thought to make it work consistently with what I’m guessing are looser glass tolerances, but it should eliminate a lot of breakage without putting metal back inside the bowl.
3. I’m not thrilled with the idea of putting a metal screen back into a glass bowl, but I’m not sure that better suited glass screens are available, so I guess I can live with that or try
@Chicken #420 ’s favorite degummed hemp fiber under the glass screen.
4. That type of glass screen seems to have a lot of space toward the outside which might make non-metal solutions more difficult by letting a lot of ground material easily fall through. Are there other options for that part?
5. It would also be nice if these fit into the latest base while not in use, but with the GonG connector itself being so tall, and again glass tolerances being looser from what I know, I’m not sure it’s possible to make it fit in the existing holes.
Maybe a riser that could screw into one of the existing post holes with glass bowl holders on top of it?
There are a lot of ways to do this, but it seems like you guys are on the right track. I hope we can see at least a prototype sometime soon!