A Waterfall/gravity Bong With A Downstem

The other day, I happened to be mindlessly thinking about anything that happened to skirt the edges of my brain, when it dawned on me that I had never before seen, nor had I heard, of a waterfall or a gravity bong utilizing the percolation of smoke through water, just onto or over it. I set out to find a way to delve into, as far as my experience could tell me, what would be uncharted territories.

My first attempt, the 'prototype', was a failure in the best way that it could be, for it taught me much. I had started with a basic gravity bong/water fall piece, the cap to a 2L bottle, with a hole drilled into it, a wrench socket stuffed through that hole, and sealed, in any way that sounds right (in this case, I had been using a high temperature hot glue (my thought process was that if it was high-temp, it would be less likely to give off chemicals should it come in contact with the smoke, which a little bit would, being right at the top of inside of the cap, not on the outside, lest it melt. Those things get REALLY hot!). From this point, I had been thinking of what to use as a downstem-like piece, and I had settled on an old curtain hanger (which I later found to be aluminum, and promptly discarded; please kids, never use aluminum in any kind of home made bong. It has been linked with increased chances of Alzheimer's. This includes aluminum foil, and anything made of aluminum, like soda cans.)

After cutting the curtain rod to the size of my 2L bottle, so that it sat at the very bottom of the bottle, I glued it up into the top of my 2L cap with hot glue, right onto the socket. This made a very good seal, and no regrets about using the hot glue, but there are better methods. This piece did 'work', but I'm very hesitant to even use that word, as it was VERY far from ideal. The pull was extremely slow, no matter how big the hole I put in the bottom of my bottle (as I was using a waterfall at the time, not a GB.). It took at least a full minute to fill the bottle, and by that time the smoke was quite stale, harsh, and just not as delicious as a real bong hit should be.

I puzzled the issue of the slow percolation. I noticed that it did get a little bit better after the water level dropped, and being a physics person myself, concluded that there was too much water to be removed from the down stem in order for percolation to happen; there just wasn't enough force from the water pushing it's way out of the waterfall. I attempted this with a GB at the time, and confirmed that higher forces will cause it to percolate faster, but it still was far from what I was looking for.

The solution? Decrease the amount of water that sits in the downstem! As I came to this realization at around 2 am, I couldn't jump right into action with a power tool, lopping off an inch or two of the downstem, I opted to take a pair of pliers, and instead just squeeze the downstem into an elliptical shape, so that at least the internal volume would decrease; it worked, on a basic level though; a step in the right direction, but certainly not a final result.

Come the next morning, I lopped off 2 inches from the downstem, and it worked like a damn charm. The length of your downstem WILL affect how quickly it percolates. Unfortunately, at this point i had realized that the curtain rod was aluminum, and promptly threw it away. But I was pointed towards the road I needed to take, just needed to start walking. It took me a couple days to think it up, but I have settled on a final, universal piece, that incorporates the percolation of smoke through water into everyday gravity bongs and waterfall's.

The piece pictured is just a socket wrench that I happened upon that seemed to be a bit longer than most I had seen. It's about 1.5-2 inches, and so gave plenty of room both above and below the hole in the bottle cap (which, had this time, been drilled to fit the piece perfectly, so well that it probably didn't even need to be sealed, but I touch on that next).

After inserting the socket piece in the cap, I wrapped electrical tape right around the base of the piece, until it created a thickness that grabbed the cap and created a seal with the general stickyness of the electrical tape, but didn't necessarily hold it on place (didn't need to, since the hole was exactly the size of the socket piece)

after this I took a piece of surgical tubing, and stretched it over the other end of the socket piece. The nature of the material itself, in combination that it was quite a bit smaller than the socket wrench (it was a bitch to get on there) made an airtight seal that I didn't really need to worry about. Even pulling solidly enough on the tubing to stretch it twice it's length didn't pull it off the socket. Cutting the tubing to length (I found a little over half, but not quite 3/4's of the length of your piece works well, but experiment; it does also depend on the width of your downstem), I threw it in a bottle, and it worked just as well as the other one had. I've used this piece on a daily basis for about the past week, and it's done wonderful. The tubing doesn't affect the smoke at all, since it's made to medical specifications anyway (although you can still find this at your local hardware store). I plan on bumping this idea up to a 3L bottle soon enough, but not quite yet. I'm enjoying this one for now.

-TheBongMakinMan
Cameron

This was my story of the slow, but steady (as well as global) evolution of smoking. Post your own DIY ideas, or maybe even any requests (since I do make home made bongs on a regular basis), and spread the word.

P.S.... If you haven't tried it before, fill your gravity bong or waterfall with hot water. Not like boiling water, right out of the kettle, but just hot tap water, hot enough to steam. You'll be surprised at how smooth it is. There's nothing wrong with adding ice/ice water to a bong, as it certainly helps the smoke on the way in, but the hot water/water vapour really helps it on the way out. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

P.S.S... Don't EVER put boiling water in a glass bong. lukewarm is okay, steaming is really pushing the boundries, but boiling water could break your bong!

 

Well as long as you know what you're doing, and it does seen like you do, you'll be fine. I'm just covering my ass so no one comes bitching to me about how I broke their bong >.>