Hi everyone, sorry I've been quite these past few weeks, as some of you know I had a family emergency a few weeks back and I've also been away from home, so I haven't had much time to get work done on these stems. But today I was finally able to put some real hours on the torch.
I've come to the realization that the inner diameter of these thicker 18 mm male joints is just too small for what I'm trying to do and I'm wasting too much glass. So I've decided to order some glass that is the same size and thickness as that on the 14 mm female joints as it seems to be the perfect size for the chain link and attach the 18 mm joints to these.
The female joints come on glass tubes that have a diameter of 19 mm and a thickness of 3 mm, the site I regularly order glass from was out of stock of this exact dimension but I was able to get some 19 mm tubing with 2.5 mm thick walls and back ordered the 3 mm walled tubes. These initial few runs will also stay at the $30 price point but may see an increase in price down the line as Pyrex tubing was on sale so I was able to get it cheaper than regularly.
This change comes with several advantages, the first being that I will have to scrap less joints as I will be able to make the chain link portion of the stem and then add the joint afterwards, so if any cracks form while making the chain link they cannot spread to the joint effectively ruining it and i can scrap that glass at a lower cost than scrapping joints. In addition to this the restriction will be greatly reduced. Lastly, and this is subjective, the bigger holes look nicer.
This does mean the wait for finished stems will be a bit longer but in the meantime I'll be working on Dynavap stems and Imp stems, which may double as E nano/Underdog stems. I also have a small stock of Hopper stems and will be sending out emails to those on the wait list.
I know this has been a rather slow process so I'd like to thank you all for your patience and continued support.
