Hello All,

I have been using a glass pipe with the ash/spice/leaf as my main smoking tek, as well as a occasionally a bong. I also have used changa and enhanced leaf in both of these. I have a volcano with the liquid pad steel mesh, but I've had trouble getting a dense vapor with it. I also have a glass whip style vaporizer that I didn't have much success with while using the leaf bed method.

I'm currently testing for an improved efficiency method, so I spent a lot of time reading up on the GVG, the machine, the key, etc. What I found is that most people use copper/steel mesh to hold their spice...melting it in first, then blasting off. (After torching off the gunk on the metal)

My question is regarding the brands of copper scrubbers to look for. Is a 'copper coated' brand okay?

I searched on 'copper' and read about everything I could find on here regarding what brand to get. I have seen Chore Boy mentioned several times, but I also read that they can be too thin (or something...). I found 'Scotchbrite Copper Coated Scrubbers' at Walmart and tried one of those. I *thought* I torched everything off of it properly before using it, but after trying it I am not sure if I succeeded. I am testing it in the glass whip. I got some white vapor right away, but it was HARSH and I didn't get much in the way of effects. I also immediately became paranoid that I was smoking metals from the scrubber...crap!

I am going to test using several screens instead of the mesh, but I'm thinking of getting a GVG and it appears I would do best to use mesh in that as well, so I need get this figured out either way.

Perhaps a few people could chime in with the brands of mesh they use and like? Also - how long should it take to torch all the gunk off before using it? I did it for a few minutes and didn't see any more smoke coming off...but there was also a lot of black charred stuff that I needed to rinse out with water. I haven't read of the need to rinse on any posts on the nexus so that also makes me think I used the wrong type.

Thanks for any help!

Take a look at this thread: Metal Mesh Safe?.

Thank you, gibran2. I linked to the chore boy site and see they have 100% copper scrubbers and have them at Walgreens and Kroger locally. Will give them a shot. 8-)

When you initially heat the copper mesh to burn off oil, be very gentle. It doesn’t take much heat to get the gunk out. If you heat it too hot, the copper will begin to oxidize – sounds like that’s what you did.

Lol...so taking a propane torch that I use to start my wood-burning stove to it for 2 minutes might have been slightly too much??? ;-P Thanks for the tip!