Alright.. I went from being laid off a month ago to being extremely over employed.. In the last 7 days I've worked over 90 hours so I'm buying myself a gift for the first time in a long time.. I'm not really well-versed with bongs - I have an HVY but my local shop has a SYN that isn't bad looking. Reviews seem mixed - some have thing glass some are ok. The chick at the head shop seems to know her shit and she likes SYN over their medicali, roor, lux, etc. There was one bong I liked a lot... The brand was like Wicked Sands or something - but the perculator slit cuts were all fucked up and I hate that. I like the perc cuts to be nice and smooth... My HVY is sorta stonerish looking so I'm sorta wanting the beaker look..
you can't go wrong with either Syn or WS. They are both VERY well blown pieces. I have a Syn and consistently hear praise about how its the best bong people have ripped. On the other hand, I have admired a lot of WS pieces and wanted to sell mine for one at points. If the WS at your shop look sloppy, just go for the Syn though. You won't be disappointed at all
I would get the WS. I dont think the slits were fucked up thats just how they are. Is the SYN perc'ed?
I've pretty much eliminated the wicked sands piece. It's not that there's something wrong with it - I just prefer my perc slits to be clean cuts. On the wicked sands (and other, cheaper pieces like the phires) the cuts look like shit. They're all rough, white, with tiny little cracks in them. On the SYN's, medicali, lux, and roors they're clean and clear. It doesn't even look like they're cut, more like melted in. Hard to explain but in the price range I'm not ok with that kind of crap.. IIRC it was $249, and looked exactly like the black accented 10-arm Tiny here: WICKED SANDS @ Shinobi Glass Don't get me wrong - it was fucking cool looking little perc, but the slits looked like they were cut with a dull blade or something.
And yeah the SYN I was looking at had a nice looking perc, slashguard, ash catcher, and worked bottom. I'm looking at $200-$300 pipes so I believe I'm going to try and find a decently worked SYN. The LUX looks nice, but I like that the Fat Mike dude checks around on forums and shit. VS the lux which is nice but I haven't found out anything about the company
wicked sands are not cheap pieces do not compare them to phire china garbage. In that price range I would attempt to find a 9mm 8arm hvy straight.
hey OP, the slits on the WS are not of bad quality. The smoother looking slits have been cut and flame polished. the functionality of flame polished comapred to plain cuts is like comparing two people. both exactly the same.. just miniscule changes. it's of preference... enjoy the new tube
dude i would go for a non-perced gong bong. ILLADELPH is my favorite brand because their diffusers and downstems i thing have the least pull when you clear. an 18in straight tube illy shouldnt run you higher than 240 enless its a thick version and i promise it will make you proud. you can fit sooo much ice in there
I already have an 18" straight tube HVY but it isn't GONG - it's fairly nicely worked but doesn't have any percs or AC or anything, and since it isn't GONG I can't easily add one. So this is my 'really good weed want to taste the flavor' bong and now I'm wanting a GONG piece with percs that I can 'mod out'.. I'm fairly set on a worked SYN piece with like 1 worked perc, worked bottom, maybe worked slide/downstem hopefully for under $300. I have a local place getting in touch with fat mike so we'll see I s'pose.
Times are tough for everyone. I've seen exactly what I wanted except slim bottom (not beaker) for ~$325. So having the same thing made but beaker shoudln't be too difficult I hope. The shop I'm dealing with is able to place an order directly with fat mike btw..
WS has their trees blown by Luke Wilson. He is one of the most well-respected glassblowers in the world of functional art. He is renowned for his tree percs and inline diffusers. SYN is still excellent quality glass, however. As far as the 'rough edges' on the trees, they look like that because they aren't flame polished. Flame polishing is what select glassblowers do after making d-cut slits in a diffy or perc or otherwise. Some artists choose to leave their slits unpolished. It's all preference. Some claim unpolished slits diffuse the smoke better. Others say unpolished slits are more vulnerable to breakage. The validity of either of these arguments is questionable; but the slits in the WS were not 'all fucked up'.
Ok I definitely didn't mean to offend anyone.. To me, it appears fucked up. I now understand that it's functional - I've looked at 3 water sands pieces - 2 were nicely worked, fairly pricey mini's with nice looking percs. Unpolished, yes, but no tiny cracks or rough edges - just a rough cut. The black accented mini, however, had very rough poor looking cuts. Functional - maybe.. But to the untrained eye it doesn't quite look right.
i just took a gander at a friend's lw piece and his slits are flame polished. i asked another friend and he said his are too. so either the ws tubes youve seen don't have luke wilson trees (if this is the case the tube isnt worth it imo) or fake. unless he just decided to not polish these. idk im baked.
So from a sample size of 2 you're gonna make a conclusion about all LW trees? That's just silly. I saw 30+ lw bubs and mini bubs yesterday... not one was flame polished.