HI Everyone...

[madmonkey]

Hello all....the last few days I have been trying to answer questions in the "ask an expert" forum and I thought I would formally introduce myself....I am no expert but am passionate about vaping.

I have been reading VU from it's first day but I have had bad experiences with vaping forums in the past and was skidish about formally joining another but I really like this one. I have been vaping for 15 months and it has become my consume all hobby. I've pretty much spent every free second of the past 14 months watching vaping videos, reading vaping forums, studying ohm's law and batteries and battery safety, and even snooping around the flashlight forums to learn more about current and amps and safety from their point of view as well.

I have DIY'd my own liquids from the beginning since I started at 36mg and most of my local shops didn't carry nic that hi and have several flavors I've managed out pretty good and share with friends and vape world professionals. I started learning to rebuild about a month in because I was having problems with a protank 2 that turned out to be defective, and I sucked at it for a long time...but after several hundred feet of Kanthal and a good chunk of nickel (I went threw a phase where I only used diver V2's because I loved carto tanks but wanted more than my cartos could do,) I've learned to wrap a pretty damn fine micro coil. I've played around with twisted wires and fancy builds and even one night out of boredom hand wrapped a .04 flat wire wound clapton style wire on 24 gauge kanthal because my drill was stolen at work and I figured it was worth a try.

I love vaping, I love helping others get into vaping, and I love how much it's come along in just the short time I've been vaping. I help my co-workers and friends that want to get into vaping and teach them to wrap their coils and shop to try and minimize the trial and error I went threw and I think I am at a point where I can be of help to newer vapers here and where those more advanced can help me. I hope everyone has wonderful holidays this year and am looking forward to being a part of the Vaping Underground. Happy Vaping everyone!

 

[angus67]

Right on. Defective anything suks. Because if you don't know its defective, you just assume its user error., and keep trying. But in your instance, it looks like it pushed you forward in rebuilds. Ive had no problems even with blister pack starter ego kit a couple months ago. And just today, I put together a kanger mini 2 on a 900mah ego batt. with vapor tech black cherry. mmmmmmmmm. satisfied.
Ide like to mix my own flavors. How did you start? Im thinking since I love menthol/peppermint types, Ide use those and cut to 1/4 then add a flavor.
PG all the way.
I like vaping too. Just tonight after dinner, I had my new rig, and a bottle of total dom IPA together. When Ide reach for one, the other said "ME TOO, ME TOO!!" I was unsure wich to grab first, beer or vape?

 

[RMarcusY]

Well WELCOME to the VU.
I think you are at the right place for a vaporholic like yourself.

 

[madmonkey]

@RMarcusY....thank you! I couldn't agree more. I just hope I can be as helpful to others as everyone that has helped me along the way....my way of trying to PIF the best I can.

@angus67 the answer is both! drink and vape at the same time and see how the flavors compliment each other. As for getting into DIY...I did a lot of reading for several days and started out small. Breaktru made a DIY calculator that you can google and download called "ejuice me up". It's free, it's simple to use, and it does all the hard math for you. As for the actual mixing you want to start small....I get my nicotine from Nude Nicotine now because I like theirs the best and I believe it is the purest of them all....I've spoken to the head guy Jake there several times and even sent him some of my mixes to ask his opinion and he has been nothing but wonderful and helpful. They don't have the biggest selection of flavoring but their's is VG based (which is shit hard to find pure VG based flavoring,) and some of them are pretty good....if you're not sensetive PG though, PG is a better flavor carrier and generally PG based flavoring is more flavorful in a vape.

I buy my nic from Nude and my flavors direct from the flavor companies in bulk and mix and freeze and thaw now as needed but either RTS Vapes or Ecig Express is a good place to start. They both have a huge selection of flavors and supplies and I know RTS is used in a lot of pro made e-liquid. Ecig Express also has menthol crystals if you want to get really extreme into but I'd by the premade menthol liquid first because one, that shit stinks up everything, and two, try and just make your flavor before you get too deep into it.

I'd start at RTS, one stop shopping, prices are middle of the road, customer service is way better, and they have free shipping over 75 bucks and a rewards program. Use the calculator to figure out how much of each ingrediant you need. When you mix a flavor the first time you want to start out with no more than like ten percent of a flavor and if it's too weak tasting then you can add a little more at a time till its to your liking. Another very important thing to remember is you're making fresh juice....once its shook up at mixed good you can vape it right away but remember that the liquid is going to steep over time....it is going to take a minimum of 7 to 14 days for that flavor to settle...it may change in character after the first week or two but it will be more subtle....always make a 5-10 ml test bottle before you mix up your entire stock on a flavor you may end up hating a week later and now have wasted money on it you can't get back. Also...get some latex gloves. Nicotine is toxic shit and if handled with bare skin it can be absorbed and make you sick as shit. with the weaker strengths of nic base (24mg and lower) it is a little bit safer but I still wouldn't handle that shit without gloves period. I use 1,3,5 and 10 mm syringes to measure out my small mixes. you need 18 gauge needles for PG base, a 12 or 14 gauge needle for VG base and 20 gauge needles for flavoring and if you go the VG flavor route a 14-16 gauge needle for that. Try and get blunt tips for safety. I buy my needles and syringes from an online pharmacy store but I buy them in bulk and use a different one for each flavor....at first start out you want one for PG, one for VG, One for Nic Base, and a couple for flavors...you can use the flavor ones for different flavors by running distilled water threw them and drying them out by pushing and pulling the plunger to air dry it. they will last you a long time if you keep them clean.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask and I will answer them if I can...I tried to cover the basics and stress the most important safety things to remember here but I am sure I forgot something. Good luck to you and let me know how it turns out.

 

[angus67]

Black cherry and ipa's don't mix too well. I do like to shoot jagermeister and chase with ninkasi total dom.(sometimes I chase the dom with jeager.
Im hoping a licorice flavor would be suitable for beer+vape. I just haven't grabbed a licorice flavor yet.

 

[Celtic Fog]

Black cherry and ipa's don't mix too well. I do like to shoot jagermeister and chase with ninkasi total dom.(sometimes I chase the dom with jeager.
Im hoping a licorice flavor would be suitable for beer+vape. I just haven't grabbed a licorice flavor yet.

We have a forum member here who swears by this stuff, I have not tried it yet but plan on it, here is the link if your interested in trying some licorice from around the world.
Health Potion. A candy like flavor, salted licorice with berry. Love the name of it.
http://www.vapetalo.fi/product/93/health-potion
And I am not positive, but I do believe this is intended as a flavoring for DIY.

 

[madmonkey]

@angus67 ha, I don't see how black cherry would mix with anything...maybe chocolate, but I never liked cherries and cherry flavor...it's the cough syrup flavor and just yuck...as far as IPA's, well I can't drink anymore really being on blood thinners but I'd think maybe a light citrus type flavor would go better with IPA's...before you roll your eyes think "Corona with a lime" or "Shock Top with an Orange slice"....citrus and beer have gone together for a long time just like martini's and olives or onions.

As far as Jager....Jager is an apatite'....it was originally meant to be a little sit before dinner...it's meant to tease your palette and make you hungry. So maybe a meat flavored vape??? I dunno, I'd vape a vanilla or a tobacco with it personally but I'm weird.

@Celtic Fog....that sounds like some interesting and potent stuff. I haven't tried licorice vapes....sadly my vape flavor sampling is somewhat limited....I get almost all my flavors from TFA/Capella's...any other good secrets I should know? I need to start trying new stuff as I've gotten lazy in making a big batch and just having it on tap. When I started I didn't wanna sample premade stuff because I wanted to make "original" works for lack of a better word and spent a small fortune buying samples of four or five of one kind of flavor just to find the right one...but I'd get frustrated and and give up and buy a flavor like "Frenilla" because I couldn't just get plain french vanilla that wasn't custard'd to taste just right and end up liking it better than anything I could make and got lazy and started buying premade stuff anyways

Once again I've typed too many words I know...one thing you should know is to help keep from failing my freshman year of high school I took a typing class for an "easy A" to raise my GPA...sorry

 

[Celtic Fog]

I had forgotten to mention @madmonkey, welcome to the family! Its good to see someone who is not afraid to type it out. Typing was a mandatory class for me back in high school, glad we had it lol. Was not so happy when we had to do computer programming the fallowing year, but hey, it was MS-DOS. Now I'm aging myself.

I am just now getting into DIY and am loving it so far. I am not too adventurous with flavor composition yet, but I am slowly building up my arsenal of flavors to work with. I have fallen victim to the big batch theory as well. Finding a flavor that worked for me, I quickly popped out 1000 ml of it....lol. This weekend I will be making new flavors as my next delivery of FW is due to hit the doorstep in a few hours. We have some FA due to hit the doorstep by Monday I do believe.

Like you, I fell in love with all things vaping and hit the ground running. Starting off with an ego pen, moving to a VW mod and now fully hooked on mechanical mods and RDA's. I have recently gotten into doing forced patinas and ink patinas as well. Next project I want to get involved with, making a mechanical mod of my own. I found a place locally that can thread the tubes of my choice with any thread I want, so going to start by using pre-made 510 and fire switches from other mods, then going to try and make my own fire switch. Eventually, I will try and make the 510 connection as well, but I will be taking my time with this project, good things come to those who stay focused and show patients.

Well, now you got me typing to much as well lol, but like I said, welcome to the family. We are glad you found us and like I tell everyone, Keep it Foggy!

 

[Uber300]

Welcome @madmonkey! I too lurked and stalked VU before joining due to the really shitty experiences I have had on some forums. This place and the people are GOLD. Welcome aboard, nice to see a DIYer.

 

[madmonkey]

Thank you both for the welcome! so far I love it here!

@Celtic Fog ...thank you for being nice about my typing rants...and if it helps....I remember typing in hex editor in MS-DOS to cheat in my Wolfenstein and Sim City games....I wish I would have actually stuck with it and learned coding...living in the seattle area I am like a dinosaur in the work force doing blue collar labor for minimal wages while millions around me make outrageous salaries working keyboards....someday I'll make it back to school when the bills are paid, but I am kicking myself for thinking I was too smart for school as a teenager....anyways back to vaping...

I want to get into modding next myself...except I want to go the other way. I suck with a soldering iron and I keep putting it off but I want to get a bunch of wire and practice flux and soldering copper wire...I have an authentic DNA 30 chip collecting dust on my shelf I want to box mod as well as I would like to build my own OKR and Raptor Mods just to do it for myself. I love my mechs, they'll last forever and I took metal shop in high school and could probably thread the tube and use an existing topcap....I want to go the regulated route...one to learn a new skill, and two...I believe with the regulations coming that for safety's sake that regulated mods are going to win out in the future....Mech mod's require learning and regular cleanings and responsible use to be safe....regulated mods require you to know which battery to use and if they work right will protect you (till they fail anyway) from your own stupidity for the most part....sadly, with sub ohm clearomizers coming out, regulated mods are the safer way for new vapors to go to protect themselfs and us as a community as a whole from bad accidents and press IMHO.

I am not saying regulated mods are a way to get a pass on not education....I preach safety in almost all my posts and believe there is no excuse not to learn ohm's law and battery safety if you're going to rebuild and use low ohms....or high ohms for that matter. Safety first period...but I know there will always be some people trying to push the limits or ignore the rules and if regulated mods helps keep people safe I am all for it....and there will always be mechs for those who want them so I see it as a win both ways