bought a glass nail... tons of noob questions

bought this sucker. boy is stuff fuckin expensive in canada. was 100$ for this piece... I coulda got a whole quartz oil rig for 200$ from the states. they didnt have much selection at the bong store. and once I seen their oil stuff... there was no way I was leaving there without something. they had highly educated nails there for 99$ too.... pretty pricey as I know what theyre worth online. I bet that piece I got could be found for 25$ online

anyways, ive only tried 1 toke off it so far and I fuckin love it. damn its nice. tasted just like a big blade toke from the good ol days. been a very very long time since I had that tasted that taste

anyways. couple of questions.

1. I bought a big propane torch for it... the 12 year old justin bieber kid at the bong store didnt know if this piece was quartz of boro (im surprised he even know what a nail and oil rig was). is the propane torch going to be too hot?

2. how exactly do I heat this up? with what part of the flame? I am scared of melting it or having it explode and shatter hot glass into my eyes or some dumb shit.

I held the tip of the propane torch to the nail (whole assembly kinda... its hard to hit just the nail) for around 15-20 seconds. I was scared to go too long or too hot. then I dabbed the pin of oil... within 3 or 4 seconds. it smoked very nicely, but kinda seemed like it wasnt quite hot enough because it didnt burn it 100%... but what it did burn was great. tasted awesome and got me fuckin RIPPED!!!!! its way different than smoking oil off a full bowl of ash like I used to. whole different story. I love this nail already!! cant wait to get it mastered for when some friends come over

Propane might be too hot for a glass nail. Glass nails are disposable in my mind, and when I used to use glass nails AND a propane torch, I would break one or two nails a night. They don't explode, in my experience a piece of the nail just falls off. Like it cracks as it cools, but it's not an explosion or anything.

Since you're using a propane torch, I'd heat the nail with the very tip of the flame where it tapers down to a point. The main difference between propane torches and butane torches is the burning temperature of the fuel. Propane burns at around 3500* F, while butane burns at around 2400* F. I used to heat my glass nails till they began to almost glow, but didn't use glass nails for too long before I invested in a decent Ti nail.

What you have DOES look like a glass nail.

And I think glowing red might be too hot for glass nails. Gotta find a happy medium between incinerating the oil immediately and not burning it all the way. Practice is the most fun way to figure that one out...lol

Btw, congrats on the purchase and welcome to the wonderful world of dabbing. Soon flowers will be a thing of the past.

so am I able to get mine red hot? or would that break it? I dont think it needs to be red hot... ill try next time for 20-30 seconds and see how that works.

one or two nails a night???? I sure hope not. can I put a TI nail in this setup I got?

vacpurge said:

so am I able to get mine red hot? or would that break it? I dont think it needs to be red hot... ill try next time for 20-30 seconds and see how that works.

one or two nails a night???? I sure hope not. can I put a TI nail in this setup I got?

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Yeah, red hot is too hot for my Ti nail, but glass doesn't hold the heat as well. Like I said, it's fun to figure it out through trial and error...lol. Yeah, I was burning through glass nails, but i was getting them red hot, which I think is too hot. They wouldn't break right away, and I'd get a bunch of dabs off them, but they don't last. Don't fear, glass nails are like 2 bucks a pop.

They make those V3 HE Ti nails with the removable base section, so you could totally put one in your rig. Hell, it might even fit base and all.

oh man... I just invited a friend over.. showed him everything, explained everything. then took a hoot to show him how it worked... and then let him kinda do his own hoot, heat up the nail while I made his dab. then he got to try the rest... easy stuff.

it was all good until he was almost done pulling... he grabbed and lifted my little nail device outta the bong to clutch, while it was very very fuckin hot!!!!!!! he managed not to drop it. it pulled it away from the bowl about 4 inches and quickly realized it was hot and managed to put it back in the bong, no breaking anything. it was fucking HOT though. I felt bad... i could tell his fingers were hurtin, he was toughing it out though.... I touched the tip of my finger to the glass for a micro second and boy she was fuckin hot. I feel bad warnings next time for anyone else!!!

I personally didn't have a problem when I used Propane w/ my glass nail, just can't Heat it up then instantly cool it down over and over..

It did eventually crack, after 4 weeks of heavy use (all day long) but it only lost a little side of it ( dropped it on carpet) was still dabbable.


However, I would reccomend not using propane for Ti nails, 'tane all the way.

Yeah, I eventually invested in a vector 'nitro', awesome butane torch. Awesome.

Plus it has a 'no proof' warrantee. So I don't need a proof of purchase if I send it in for free repairs.

I dunno, maybe I got a batch of shitty glass nails, but I would break several a week.

We used both propane and butane with our borosilicate and quartz wands. Every one of the borosilicate eventually cracked, regardless of what we heated it with, but we didn't lose any of the quartz ones.

is it possible to get custom made nails? I would like my nail to be in the dome more... the side sucking action of the nail doesnt work very good. you gutta pull very hard on the bong, resulting in lots of air and a not very thick toke

The one problem I see with not getting 'all the smoke/vapor' is you have way too many percs in line. With the errlz, you don't need that many IMO

Azweepei said:

The one problem I see with not getting 'all the smoke/vapor' is you have way too many percs in line. With the errlz, you don't need that many IMO

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Some of the best oil rigs I've hit have been small with the least amount of percolation possible. With that many percs, you ARE losing a large portion of your hit

where is the hit going??

my setup has the smoke going through water 6 times... very smooth tokes. I thought the more water/filtration the better??

BUT, thats beside the point... its the side dome I dont like. the nail is too far from the dome and too high... poor placement IMO for a 100$ piece. makes ya wonder if the maker even dabs lol! I dont miss much smoke, just gotta pull hard. everyone else misses a lot of smoke though which sucks. even sometimes I miss some of the hoot..thats what I dont like. seems like with a normal dome, or even if my nail was placed better, its 100% smoke 100% of the time.

now I dont think this is quartz. and this may sound dumb.. but I remember this weird kid in high school at a friends house heated up this glass rod with a propane torch and was able to bend it, and made it swirly and stuff.. kinda cool. anyways... would it be in any way possible to do that to this piece? to heat up the nail holder mount enough to bend it without breaking, then bend it ever so slightly towards the dome... so it kinda points the nail inside of the dome? im used to working with metal, not sure how easily glass bends when heated or does it like to snap.

ok.. so wtf. has anyone ever had their dome backfire on them?!?!?!?! I have no idea what happened. it almost seemed like there was gas/fuel fumes somehow IN my percolator ash catcher thing.

I had my dab... and was trying something new. coming from directly on top with the pin parallel with the nail (going vertical).. and held it for 1 second, it didnt work. so I dabbed the oil onto the nail at an angle and it made a giant puff...and turned my fuckin piece black!!!!!!!! it was beautifully rez'd up with some nice golden oil residue that i was watching grow... now I got this and gotta clean it tonight and start from scratch.

my torch head has been acting weird... I am wondering if somehow some propane got inside while I was heating the nail and turned the torch off?? then when the oil hit the nail, it somehow made a spark and lit up the propane, or what?

what the fuck happened? anyone else ever had their dome backfire like that?!?!

My guess is that your nail was too hot. The black soot is partially combusted oil.

Heat some oil in a crack pipe and watch what happens when it reaches combustion temperature.

vacpurge said:

now I dont think this is quartz. and this may sound dumb.. but I remember this weird kid in high school at a friends house heated up this glass rod with a propane torch and was able to bend it, and made it swirly and stuff.. kinda cool. anyways... would it be in any way possible to do that to this piece?

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Yes, a glass worker can heat and form quartz. We have our wands formed out of quartz rod at a scientific glass shop.

I dont think this is quartz though.

and how does that happen from the nail being too hot?! ive had it way hotter and that didnt happen. plus I had let it cool for an extra second while I adjusted the dabber. that black soot isnt oil, I barely sucked any in. it was a mini explosion. I think my dome somehow filled with propane gas after I shut the valve off while still pointed at the nail for a split second I think.. either way. not cool. scary.

Borosilicate can also be heated and formed.

Maybe I'm not understanding what happened correctly. Something needs to ignite the oil or propane to produce soot. What other sources were there besides the nail?