I'm late on here, been reading alot over the last week here. Registered to make this my first post. Bought a Iolite after reading about it here. I have had a Vapman for about the last 18 months. It takes a few days of playing with it to figure it out. You absolutely do "not" need to block any holes when vaping, whether from the venturies or the air holes in the vaping stem as I read above. You need a "good" torch lighter with a nice pencil flame. The bowl can hold up to 1/10th of a gram. (I weighed it out) I can get very nicely medicated from a single bowl without scorching. In fact, I can get two people singing with one bowl in this thing.
With my Blazer torch lighter, it gets up to temp with 2 bursts of approx. 4 seconds each from the torch. I can vape that little bowl for an easy 15 to 20 really nice hits. It's very important when re-heating for additional vapes to then give it only a second or two burst from the jet lighter. (really depends on the size of your jet flame) This will get it nicely up to temp without overheating. Most people apply too much heat. I've read the posts above where someone says the gold plating comes off the bowl, this only happens when it is overheated by quite a substantial amount. (it takes 1100 deg. F to do this. *Much* higher than it needs to be heated. (approx 350 to 375 degrees) I think most people get a little stoned and over anxious at first and tend to overheat. The gold loss doesn't make it any less effective though. I measured the bowl temps with a thermocouple and a infra-red heat gun to arrive at this technique. Never taking the bowl to over 375 degrees F. Same as I vape with my HerbalAire and now the Iolite. My gold plating still looks like the day I purchased it. I think this thing is TOTALLY worth the $125 that it can actually be purchased for. I would pay twice that. I really like the Iolite, but if I had to choose one vaporizer, it would be the Vapman. It is more efficient for personal use. 1/10th of a gram can lift you up where you belong.
You can take one hit or many hits on one bowl and slip it back into its case and right back into the pocket. (it is tiny) The Iolite seems to work best with a very fine grind and a full bowl in my opinion, which is about 1/2 gram. That is FIVE bowls in the Vapman. Let's put that in perspective - I see that guys with the Purple Days use even less than 1/10th of a gram, they use 1/4 of a 10th of a gram and get 2 to 4 nice hits. (I have a PD on order - few days ago, thanks to the very favorable comments here - can't wait
) Now that Iolite is sending me a couple of the new metal stemmed mouthpieces to replace my melted ones, I like using that when I know that I will be blasting with my wife and can leisurely spend the 15 minutes to fully vape that 1/2 gram. I really like it as well as it has its uses in different situations. My wife likes the Iolite because it gives really smooth vapor that doesn't make her cough and she likes that it is stealthy because no one knows what it is. I can easily vape with the Vapman almost anywhere. It can be concealed in the cup of your hand when you take a hit. It's also ridiculous for anyone to say anything about inhaling butane with the Vapman. You heat it with a torch lighter and "then" hit it. No sucking in butane as with a Vapor Genie. The Vapman stands alone in my opinion for stealth, efficiency, design and it just works. The only complaint that I could make is that when you take your time and do many vapes over a short time period, it does get a little warm, but that is not really a complaint as it still is holdable. I just want to encourage anyone sitting on the fence on the Vapman, to get one and learn to use it as I state above and you will be very happy with it. I think it is the Purple Days portable equivalent as far as design, finish and efficiency. I see that it has a higher user satisfaction level than the Iolite on Vaporstore's website, which I think is well deserved. (Vapman 9.3 to Iolite's 8.8 with almost as many reviews) Yes, I am a fanboy of the Vapman.
Here's a link to Vapman's online manual for a better idea on how it works:
http://www.vapman.com/index2_eng_manual.html
Definitely not a fanboy of Vaporstore though.
Purchase elsewhere. That's another story for another time.