Horrible Illadelph Experience

Hi guys

I want to share my experience purchasing a premium Illadelph pipe as a warning to other prospective owners. Maybe someone here can point me in the right direction

Earlier this year I found myself intrigued by the "frozen coil" illadelph line. I located an allegedly legitimate vendor in Providence through the illadelph website and picked it up for about $900

After only a few weeks of use, the first incident occured. I went to remove the insertable blue "stem" (where the bowl goes) from the lip of the bong and a piece of the lip effortlessly broke off solid. It's worth nothing that the particular piece that broke had never been cooled. For those unfamiliar with the frozen coil series, the bong has a detachable glycerin filled coil for the top half that can be cooled for up to 20 minutes to produce awesome smooth hits

The bong still worked at this point, until a couple weeks later I was lightly unscrewing the cooled top segment after an hour of use or so and a chunk of glass off the bottom once again effortlessly broke off solid, sticking in the base of the bong. At this point the bong still worked but I wasn't gonna risk the integrity of this shoddy product with any more cold temperatures. Lo and behold, I went to remove the Blue stem piece for cleaning a week or two later, and a giant piece of the base broke right off solid around the stem area, rendering the bong useless

I believe I was either sold a fake, or this is the most ill conceived bong of all time. I've tried two email addresses for illadelph in the months since this catastrophe and have never received a reply. Guess money doesnt buy quality after all?

Jeff

 

I can explain the first two breakages more clearly with some photos. The third around the side of the base, really I just don't remember. I know I was trying to pull the blue stem out and applied some pressure. I was never unreasonably physical with this thing and was scared shitless of breaking it

I'm going to take a couple pictures and put them up here tomorrow with the before shot. I think it's apparent from the before and after shots that I didn't just drop this thing or something. The breakages were clean and progressive

 

I know right? must have been high or something

 

Glycerin coil is still intact luckily. Only the bottom of it is broken. It still works fine but I won't touch it because I'm afraid of glass shards. The base of the bong is useless though, big hole in the side where the slot for the stem used to be

 

I was going to wait to show the pics to explain since my giant bong vocab is limiting me here

I pulled straight up on the slide and a small solid glass piece of the lip broke off clean. This was after I froze it, smoked for a while, and then went to replace the slide with my ashcatcher accessory. This may have happened two seperate times. I wish I had a pic of how clean the breaks were here but the base broke around this part many weeks later. Basically, freezing the thing compromised the integrity so far that just a little pressure resulted in the thing breaking in spots

The second much more concerning break was the top glycerin piece that screws into the base. I went to unscrew it and a solid piece of the bottom stayed there no problem as I pulled up. It was a small piece the first time and a much larger piece that got stuck in the base the 2nd time. Some time after this the base broke around the stem entry which is gone now. I'll have pics tmrw.

 

I definitely pulled straight. It would be hard not to. The thing was just stuck so I gave it a tug and that's all it took. As far as the glycerin top, I don't know if its the freezing or similar to the slide, and yeah I further broke the base later on, but fuck, that equiptment was fragile and yeah I do feel like illadelph should hook me up or at least have responded to me