Congrats! I use both of mine "native" with the SS tube 95% of the time. Its the ultimate micro dozer! Ha! Makes your material last and last!
I made a glass one-hitter, the only drawback with it is I have to make my own basket screens for it. But Alan has made me a corked stem that will have 3/8" glass tip, and 1/2" glass mouthpiece with the cork holding the two pieces together, with the screen sandwiched between them. I use crumbs in that thing. CRUMBS, I say. Not having to make, remove, clean, or insert basket screens would only make me love it more.
I have also figured out several ways to use the U lock to make a "bowl" for the vape that can be attached to a "whip", without a bong. While doing that I finally figured out what the band on the U lock is for - it helps hold the flat screen stable on the lip of the stem. So now I can make a band for my other stem where I have the screen mounted that way (I got the idea after receiving the U lock, its the same screen holding mechanism).
Well not NOW now. It'll be a week and a half yet before my vaccination is complete and I can go out in public again, hit the brew supply shop, and get a few extra feet of food-grade heat-resistant silicone tubing to play with. Plus plus - while fiddling with stuff to take pictures, I suddenly hit on a different way to secure a flat screen that is mounted on the lip of a stem, like the U lock, and a regular glass stem that I set up in the same way with a piece of silicon tubing stabilizing a flat screen on the lip of the stem.
I mean OTHER than cutting a piece of glass to go in there.
Use a piece of silicone tubing that can fit inside the tubing holding the screen. A thin (short) piece could just be pushed in to hold the screen down flat. I can haul it back out with one of my nutpicks whenever I need to change or clean the screen. It will reduce the max size of your load a little bit but I'm a microdoser. I won't notice. YMMV. it also gives me a stop to help standoff from shoving the herb right into the heater core (screen is OUTSIDE the stem resting on the lip instead of a basket screen mounted INSIDE the stem an inch or two from the end of the stem). While you can try to adjust the standoff by changing the length of the silicone airlock on the tip, I like having a physical stop better. THUS FAR, and no further!
To fix it so I could use the whip with the bong, I need to find a silicone plug with a hole drilled in it already that will fit in the mouthpiece of the bong. I don't know what size that might be since I don't have the bong yet LOL!
U lock to be turned into a "bowl" for a log-vape-whip: Normal configuration, the glass stem is an inch long inserted into 1/2" tubing. There is a band at the lip of the stem where the screen is resting that helps to secure and stabilize the screen.
the metal post looking thingy there is an old heater core from an air core! It came out of the maple body behind the alpha there to the left. I still use the body as a stem caddy. Anyway the point of the heater core is that it is going to be the stand for the U lock "bowl" when not in use. I'm going to build a stand for my bong and I'll glue the old core to it somewhere appropriate so I can lift the bowl off the heater core and set it on the old core as a holder. I don't think it would be a good idea to leave that sitting on the heater core when not in use, something might melt, overheat, or catch fire LOL! Seriously you shouldn't leave things like that sitting on the heater core and trapping heat. Plus its easier to dump and clean it if you let it cool off, and it would be nice if it could cool off without falling over and spilling ABV.
I can use the U lock either way (upside down or right side up) and it will fit on an Alpha core one way and a regular heater core the other way. I'm not sure which HI heater core would be closest in size to a UD regular size heater core but I hope to find out in person soon-ish. This should work pretty much the same way on at least some HIs
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The above picture shows how the "bowl" would fit on a regular HI/UD stem, with the screen side down. I would attach the whip to the glass piece sticking out there - in the 2nd pic above I left a gap so you can see how I've attached the "whip" (I don't have a 2' or 3' long piece of tubing for real yet, so pretend that little 2" piece of tubing is the whole whip LOL!). In this position, the glass stem is above the screen.
And you can flip the whole thing over to make it work with an Alpha heater core:
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I don't have a disassembled Alpha dog so we'll just pretend that old heater core is Alpha sized LOL! The glass stem is about the same size as the Alpha core so it won't fit inside OR outside, but with an airlock applied to the tip, it will still seal (more or less) around the Alpha core. I only have one spare piece of 1/2" tubing so I can't fully illustrate. I used my single spare piece of 1/2" tubing to simulate a 3' whip LOL!
In this position, the glass stem (1" long) is on the bottom and the screen is above it. There are other ways to make this fit as well but this protocol leaves the U lock minimally modified. I can still just set it on the old heater core when not in use.
Now for the mouthpiece. Alan sent me a prototype for a wooden stem sized to fit an Alpha. But the Alpha core is like 1/32nd too big to easily fit into the largest tube you could make from that blank size. (It was a prototype after all). In use the thin wall at the tip dried out really quickly - thank heaven for mineral oil LOL!
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I'm going to use it for the mouthpiece for the whip. It just so happens that 3/8" tubing fits PERFECTLY INSIDE the tip of the stem, or 1/2" tubing fits OVER that 3/8" tubing and butts up against the lip of the wooden stem, almost as if it were made for it! (So there is the 3/8" stub sticking out of the wooden stem - if I use 3/8" tubing for the whip then that is the whip LOL!
If I use 1/2" tubing for the whip, I would just slide the larger tubing over the smaller stub inserted into the end of the wooden stem. When brand new that task will be difficult to impossible (well not really impossible but close) but with broken in tubing, it slides on and off just fine. An added bonus for klutzes like me - if you overextend the reach of the whip, and if your bong is properly secured (which mine will be, in a stand I will build after I get the bong so I can see what would work best) - instead of pulling the entire bong over and flooding my entire coffee table and everything on it with malodorous bong-water, it will just separate (with broken in tubing, if you are using still sticky new tubing hopefully the stand will still protect you from the bong water before you actually pull it all the way over, but sticky new tubing would be highly unlikely to separate).
Almost as if that wooden stem were made for just this purpose. Which in a way it was. Not having an alpha dog to measure directly, knowing the alpha core was about 1/2" OD, it turns out that core is ever so slightly more than 1/2" (probably something-millimeters and just that bit larger). 3/8" silicone tubing fits perfectly into the wooden end of the stem, it slides right in there and butts up right against the screen, and then the standard 1/2" silicone tubing slides right over that stub of 3/8" sticking out there, and it looks and works great. I think it will make an EXCELLENT mouthpiece for a whip.
I can easily use either the 3/8" tubing or the 1/2" tubing for the whip, and it wouldn't matter (with a little simple finagling) which device I was using the whip with. Whatever the orientation of the U lock "bowl", it will be easy to reconnect the whip accordingly.
What do you think an optimal length and tubing size would be for a whip? I'm looking for that sweet spot on the draw, not too restricted but not too wide open.
When the bong gets here I can start looking for a silicone stopper - I need to actually measure the ID of the mouthpiece to find a stopper that will fit, so I can attach the whip to the bong ...
I've read about people experiencing difficulty cleaning their silicone whips because the silicone is allegedly prone to damage from alcohol (I mean you can always clean the stuff with PBW, but then there's no reclaim). But the tubing I am looking at is for brewing beer - I don't see how it could work for that function if it were susceptible to damage from alcohol! But I will certainly ask when I can get over there, post vaccination finalization.
I keep thinking I've peaked and it can't get any better, and then it does! I have loved every vape I've ever had - and every vape I've ever had and with which I have been more than satisfied gets replaced with another vape that turns out to work even better than the one before. I've always been just fine with my glass stems - but now they are better than fine. I've got a longed-for glass one-hitter, several ways to be able to use flat screens so I can get away from basket screens, and now the one thing I have ever only idly considered - a whip for my vapes! YAY!!!
![:\](/i/s/hmm.gif "Hmm :\")
even more options! yay
(coming from me that is hilarious)