Here's the first one I made, called the Great Pumpkin. It broke though when one of my friends knocked it over onto the part of the diffuser the bowl sticks into. The bowl came out at a bad angle anyway.
Decided to make another one, here's everything I gathered together:
Vase (can be purchased at Marshall's, Home Goods, or any other store with lots of decorative vases)
Straight tube or diffuser with bowl (can be bought online, got this one from a friend's broken bong)
Dremel with tungsten carbide bit
Epoxy
Total cost: $6 (vase) + $4 (epoxy) + $10 (diffuser)= $20
sweet vase I found
friend's diffuser
dremel
1. Line up the diffuser with the vase to find the best spot for the hole to go.
2. Begin drilling. The tools for this part are really up to you. You could use a drill, Dremel (brand name for smaller rotatory tool), or other rotatory tool with diamond or tungsten carbide bits. I got my Dremel for $30 and a tungsten carbide bit for $8 awhile ago when I used to mod paintball guns. There are larger bits than the one I use which would make a perfectly circular hole in much less time, I was just making do with what I had when I made this bong though.
When drilling, be very careful of when you first get through the glass, this is when it cracked on my test piece because I was pushing too hard and the bit got caught in the hole that was just made. The speed used was between 24k and 30k rpms. If the tool is really jumpy and hard to hold, turn it down a bit and mask the hole with some tape, so you won't scratch the vase is random places.
3. Once you have gotten the whole first made, the dangerous part is over, and the tedious part begins. Start widening the hole until it is finally the correct size for the diffuser. The thicker the glass, the longer this takes. If the tool or glass starts to feel uncomfortably warm, take a 5-10 minute break and let it cool back down before drilling again.
almost there...
4. When the diffuser will finally fit in, clean up the hole a little bit and angle it (if thick enough glass) so that the diffuser will point to the center bottom of the vase. When you're completely satisfied with the hole, wash all the glass dust out of the vase. Careful, the glass might still be warm and rinsing it with cold water would cause it to crack.
5. Glue the straight tube or diffuser in place with a very small amount of epoxy just around the contact point between it and the vase. Use epoxy based on what the instructions say, usually a 1:1 ratio of the contents of the two tubes. This should be relatively safe, since it will never get very hot (epoxy good to 250*F) and therefore not release any harmful vapors (can't guarantee though). If you don't want to use epoxy, get some files for glass and make the hole in the vase the perfect size for the diffuser, so just the glass on glass joint will be airtight. I'm too lazy to do this though. And don't be a dumbass and take a pretend hit out of it while the epoxy is still drying and giving off fumes.
6. Wait for it to fully dry, rinse multiple times, enjoy.
Yeah the bowl is really old and crappy, need to replace it with an ash catcher.
Overall it's a pretty good bong. Huge hits, but still a lot of water so it takes awhile for it to get too dirty to use. The glass vase has slight imperfections as you can somewhat see in the pictures (not 100% clear, kind of wavy inside) but still is thick enough and will hold up. Very happy with it for the price of only $20.
Edited by marcusclarkus, 05 October 2008 - 08:27 PM.
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im not crafty but my fiancee saw this over my shoulder and now is planning our own ..i hope were as motivated as you... pictures if we do .. hell everyone who see this and plans on there own. post pictures!!
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