In addition to containing sticky oils, vapor is warmer than most parts in the air path so condensation occurs. After repeated use you'll notice a golden resin building up. There are a few ways to reclaim it.
Cannabis Vapor Condensate
Alcohol dissolves the resin which can then be used in a tincture or evaporated leaving the resin to vape.
If you plan on making a tincture, use alcohol safe for human consumption. Everclear, vodka, or another high proof distilled beverage.
If you plan on evaporating, use
Isopropyl alcohol as it should evaporate the most cleanly. 99 or 50%, it doesn't really matter, higher percentages will work faster, the remaining percentage should be water only.
Read the label. Grain alcohol contains trace amounts of sugar which can end up in your resin. Other alcohols contain bittering agents and nasty shit you don't want in your resin. See below for evaporation methods.
Scraping is an easy method that can work well with some heavily coated pieces. Use a suitable tool such as a bamboo skewer or bent paperclip. Chilling the piece for 30 minutes in a freezer prior to scraping helps loosen the resin.
Video
Fats such as butter and cooking oil can be heated and used to melt the resin for use in edibles.
Heating glass parts gently with a torch works well for oil vapes.
Video
How to clean specific parts
Various glass parts: Extreme, Vapolution, etc.
Soak the parts in a tall glass or ziplock bag until the resin is dissolved, scrape with cotton swab etc., if necessary. Cover the glass with plastic wrap to prevent evaporation while soaking.
Wands: SSV, DB, VW, etc.
I like this method because it's fast.
- Cover the bottom of the wand tightly with plastic wrap and rubber band or hold it with your finger
- Scrape any thick spots around the bowl with the blunt end of a bamboo skewer
- Fill wand half way with iso and cover top with plastic wrap and rubber band
- Shake the hell out of it until it starts to look clean
- See Evaporation below
Frickr has an easy method for
cleaning wands using an air pump.
PD tubes
You can use the supplied purple cleaning bottles to soak the tubes. Personally I like to use the wand cleaning technique described above. An eye dropper is perfect for filling the tube, just hold both ends with your finger and thumb and shake. Rinse with hot water.
Whip tubing
Personally I don't use alcohol on whip tubing because of the porousness; it can affect the tubing causing it to smell like alcohol and there's a possibility of plasticizers leeching into the alcohol if you plan on reclaiming the resin. You can get a long screw with a head slightly larger than the inside diameter of your tubing and push it through to squeegee out the resin. Easier if you cut the tubing into smaller sections. Check out
Spiral's thread on this.
Evaporation
- Pour the liquid through a filter (optional but will result in a cleaner product) into a pyrex pie plate
- Place the pie plate on a pot filled with hot water to speed evaporation DO THIS OUTSIDE, THE FUMES ARE TOXIC AND FLAMMABLE
- Once the alcohol has fully evaporated, scrape up the resin with a razor blade
Optionally you can gather the resin on a pin and gently heat it with a torch. Let it drip into a dish and stir. This should help remove any traces of remaining alcohol.
Any resin left in the plate after scraping can be salvaged by rubbing with butter for a snack.
Freshly scraped straight from the wand..
How to vape the resin
Topic for another thread.