Silica in bulk

[stealthvape]

Just to add I've had some pretty nasty stuff in the past from eBay, taxed like shit and didn't wick very good

Okie, I'll speak to the wick dude.

On a safety note, some of the glass fibres sold have a low melting point. That means that if you heat it up with a torch and some of it melts, try breaking the heated wick over a black piece of paper to see if there is any dust, give it a crunch. It's the dust that is cause for concern. It also shouldn't blacken, blackening is a sign of something burning, maybe a polymer or resin to make it look all smooth and nice..

Don't mean to rant, but I've learnt a bit about wicks over the years and I want to keep you all strong and healthy

 

[whit77]

Whoops thought I'd edited my post ''tasted'' not taxed
Cheers mate

 

[stealthvape]

Ti wire?? are we talking rope wicks here cos looked round your page earlier for SS 7x19 2mm an couldnt find but is titanium better as wanted to try wire rope

Rope wicks in general is something I'm not prepared to stock until I find a grade of metal I'm happy with. Medical grade would be nice but it's evading me somewhat. I found some medical Ti rope, but the problem is if you get Ti too hot, possibly the kind of hot doing a dry burn on a gennie it might ignite the Ti rope causing it to burn it's way through your atty in a roman candle esque way. You can't put a Ti fire out with water, it's just fizzle away at the bottom of the bucket till it's done.

I bought a 10,000 metre spool of Titanium resistance wire once for an obscene amount of money thinking it would be the answer to all of our wire needs. Which is was, apart from it spontaneously igniting if it had the hint of a hot spot. It was good on silica but tricky to get right. Vapes like a dream but irresponsible to sell to the general public at this delicate stage in the EU debates.

It'll come back out one day, when the vaping world is ready

 

[Grizzly Adams]

So your advice on SS rope stealthvape is to wait awhile? and it sounds like the Ti is a no no for me, dont sound user friendly at all, better stick with the mesh lol

 

[stealthvape]

Just thought I'd say this:
The stuff whit posted, burns easily, and also tastes like death until you've pretty much burned half the wick through

Next order will be from SV...

Also, what's that other stuff?
the ceramicy wool stuff?

Oh the ceramic woolly wick stuff was another lost lump of money for some wick that was made out of ceramic fibres. It as like knitting wool and has promise until it turned out to be tosh. 20 or 25kg god knows how many thousands of metres it was. The manufacturers swore blind it would be perfect so lesson learned there I suppose.

All for the search for something that's better than decent silica. I think I wanted to be the one to find some amazing new wicking material and bask in the glory of a brief moment of internet fame. So, along the way I've become a bit more sensible with my money and the whole experience showed me a shallow side to my nature I didn't know was there. And that silica really is probably king atm

 

[clint]

Ahh silver tongued as always you charmer hehe. I'm out of 3mm silica wick but more is on it's way. We're also having a glitch with the levels of 2mm wick not updating to our website or ebay.

I'll add some 2mm manually to the store tomorrow.

I was going to order some 2mm with my order the other day but just presumed you had none, should have asked you here first. Ne'r mind.

I tried the stuff from the mesh company when I first got into rebuildables thinking that it was going to save me money compared to other vendors but honestly, hand on heart, it was shit compared to the stuff I'd had previously from stealthvape. I found myself having to rewick every couple of hours or so. I kept getting a nasty taste like burning oil or something which did kind of concern me.

Also it does give you reassurance when you read stuff like this

10m spools of wick are in the pipeline me hearties. Prob a month away or so.

Silica wick is a glass fibre with with an extremely high silica content 96% that's good for temperatures up to 1600. If they managed to fit another 1 or 2 % silica into the fibres I think we could call it quartz wick.

There's an awful lot of types of glass fibre, and a lot of different grades too.

Some places just use the word silica to pull in punters. There 'is' silica in most glass fibres, just not as much and a load of other stuff hence it's lower temperature resistance.

General rule of thumb is, if they're not showing off about the silica percentage in the description its just a kind of higher temperature glass fibre. normally good for about 1000c.

We've considered stocking it, I even have 20kg of ceramic fibre wick but it's not good enough for SV.

Unless @ZT braved the ceramic woolly wick stuff?

When manufacturers even talk about their 'made with 98% silica fibres' you still have to push and ask what else, just to find there are only a few high silica strands and the rest is alumina-silicate fibre. Ekowool spin it a bit like that. They say on their website something like, and I quote 'contains silica fibres and stuff'

WHATS THE STUFF EKOWOOL?

Silica is king, accept no cheap alternatives

EDIT: I'll ask my silica dude about getting some extra as a 50m reel if you like. We get them to bag it at source these days as it's hard to find the time to do it ourselves.

EDIT2: There's no way I could do silica at 48p a metre. My advice is to try a bit from a few suppliers and see what the difference is. If you don't notice, or you're happy with the other stuff then stick with that. If however you have an epiphany and you're all 'omg this stuff from Stealthvape is the s%$t, Rob was right then give me a shout

Cheers Rob.

 

[stealthvape]

So your advice on SS rope @stealthvape is to wait awhile? and it sounds like the Ti is a no no for me, dont sound user friendly at all, better stick with the mesh lol

Oh give it a go, but just get a few bits. And boil and torch it, then boil it again. Make sure it's not galvanised too.

I'll get some samples of the Ti rope and see how easily it ignites with a bucket of sand nearby

 

[ZT]

i
did try it Rob! It acted me and tasted funny :-)

Acted = scared goddamn tasty cocktails And predictive text

 

[Purplefowler]

Funny you should say about the blackening of the wick. I hadn't planned on going back to silica as I've been loving my inverted gennies but then I got carried away at vapefest. I know I had some of your stuff a while ago but I was sure I'd used it all but when I looked in my magic vaping box I found a baggy with a length of wick-happy days! Then I used it and it didn't taste right and when I changed my wick today (after having it on for 2 days) the whole wick was black and nasty looking, not just at the coil, so I put 2 and 2 together and realised this was some of the first wick I got before I got converted to the cult of stealthvape! The difference is huge, it feels almost gritty and I'm sure it has some sort of coating. I bought it from eBay when everyone was raving about a seller there, back in the days before stealthvape was even in exsistance. I can't wait to get some of the good stuff again cos it really makes so much difference.

 

[Mark]

Acted = scared goddamn tasty cocktails And predictive text

I liked the vodka off the wrist