Kind.of.confused on this as I have read to use as.little as necessary in one post and then somewhere else someone says to pretty much fill the whole.neck with the mesh plug.

The first two times I used my machine I had a small mesh plug maybe a third of an inch thick once it was compacted into the machine. On these first two sessions a loaded 50mg both times and heated the neck of the pipe from under as well as pulling the flame into the mesh.

I got huge hits and damn near broke through. However a ton had leaked through and rextal on the neck of the machine. I then read to use way more mesh not to heat the neck and to only.pull hot air from the flame and to never let it contact the mesh.

I followed the advice and got terrible results. In fact the only time I got a hit was after realizing it wasn't working and just putting the flame close enough to contact the mesh. By then I was out of breath from the first failed hit.

I then read on the gvg thread that too much mesh doesn't work as the spice runs from heat and will end up trapped in the plug never vaporizing.

If anyone can comment that would be great. Also if I'm not supposed to heat the neck and only.pull hot air in I'm assuming its going to take a minute of pulling hot air before vapor is produced? Meaning the first draw won't even produce vapor?

I generally hold the machine vertically with flame under it about a inch away until smoke.starts to form and then start hitting it. When I did this last time I didn't get any hit until I moved the flame in close enough. To touch the mesh.

It seems when I do that I get huge hits and it doesn't burn or irritate my lungs making me think all is well. Maybe I just have iron lungs.

I always made my stainless steel mesh plugs so that they filled at least 1" of the neck, packed as tight as possible without restricting airflow, and it worked perfectly. A small amount of DMT will still make it through and stick the inside of the bottle, but it appeared to be significantly less than when I had used a small mesh plug.

I also used to use a torch lighter and put the flame right up against the stainless steel mesh, and burnt spice was never an issue.

Cool. Thanks for the information. I will try this next.

More then likely I'll end up springing for a gvg though.

Any reccomendayions on torch lighters?

I used The Machine for years, but I bought a GVG and never looked back.

For torches I recommend either the Arc Turboflame, or the unbranded equivalent which costs 1/5th the price and works every bit as well.

I have two Machine questions that also deal with the wool.

Where to place the spice? Entheogenerator, in a recent previous thread you mentioned placing the spice on the thread end. I feel like I'm more easily able to burn it that way as it seems a bit exposed. Im not asking to question your knowledge or experience, but it seemed best to place the spice on the chamber end so the wool would act as a thermal buffer, similar the ash/spice/ash idea. How far away would you hold the tip of the blue flame from a jet lighter from the threads?

Sometimes the tip of the wool will glow red on the inhale, the thick vapor/smoke is smooth, but after a 20 sec hold there is smoke/vapor in the exhale. Could this residual exhaust be from scorching the spice or was it just a heavy hit?

To clarify: for the second question, the spice is on the chamber end of the wool.

You can put it in whichever end works best for you, but trying to load it into the chamber end sounds like a major pain in the rear. When I still used The Machine I always put the spice in the threaded end, melted it into the stainless steel mesh ahead of time, and I held a torch lighter to the steel mesh so that the flame was directly touching it. Every dose was vaporized properly and efficiently. If you pre-melt the spice into the mesh, it really makes no difference which end you put it in because it will be distributed throughout the mesh.

Blowing out a small amount of vapor when exhaling a toke is not a problem. You would know if you had burned the spice, because your throat/lungs would most likely be hurting and you probably would not be experiencing much of an effect from the DMT.

Sweet! So I'm doing it more or less right.
I too did notice the spice saturated all the wool, but thought it happened since it was a glob of goo to begin with... Guess I'll load at the threads now.
Thanks for your quick reply!

When you say load at the thread do you mean so the spice will be facing the floor assuming you are holding it vertical?

I've had my first couple attempts using a machine and not sure if I've been doing it right. I only packed 5mg so the minimal effects might just be dosage and not technique.

Yes, that is the idea. Melt the spice into the metal mesh ahead of time, then point it at a downward angle when you are taking a hit. This allows the melted spice to flow downwards toward the flame to be vaporized, rather than into the bottle.

Just a quick question regarding the melted DMT.

Once the DMT has melted on to the chore boy, and your holding the machine with the neck facing downwards, when you apply heat does the DMT not melt again and run down and out, before turning into vapour? Or do you make it so there is enough chore boy in there so even if it does melt and run out, then very little will be lost as it will fall onto more chore boy?

The reason people hold it with the neck facing downwards is so that the melted DMT will run towards the flame. This way it will all be vaporized. If one were to hold The Machine with the neck facing upwards, some of the DMT would melt and run down the sides of the glass into the bottle.

Thanks for clearing that up. I couldnt get my head around the fact it would probably melt and run out of the bottom.

If one was to preload the chore boy before inserting, how could this be done efficiently? My main quarm is when the chore boy is inside the bottle it is packed tightly, and when the DMT is added (before being melted), if it falls through the gaps in the chore boy then it will simply come into contact with more chore boy. Whereas when you add the DMT to the chore boy before, then the chore boy wont be tightly packed and wont some fall through to the surface below the chore boy?

I'm not sure I understand your problem here. Pack the metal mesh into the bottleneck tightly. Put your dose into the threaded end of the bottle, on top of the metal mesh. It is perfectly fine for some of it to fall down into the metal mesh, but if your mesh is packed tightly enough most of it will stay on top. Gently apply just enough heat to melt the DMT.

Hmm, pack it at the thread end you say? I've been pulling the mesh out, heating the mesh a little so when I add the spice, it melts into it. I then place the mesh back into the neck, spice facing up towards the chamber and pull the flame through the neck opening.

I don't see how putting the spice facing towards the floor won't scorch it rather than vape.

That sounds like a lot of unnecessary effort, pulling the mesh out and loading it then repacking it. I have found that it is much easier to just leave it intact.

A very tiny portion of the spice may burn (like less than 5%), but most of the spice vaporizes before it gets too close to the flame due to the metal mesh being heated.

EDIT: Before I owned a GVG, I used this method regularly for several years. I never burned a single dose using The Machine and the technique I have described, even when using a small torch lighter.

I would like to thank you Entheogenerator for clearing things up (I know it was over 2 weeks ago now!) and I have been successful in using the Machine!

I am currently using a 190ml bottle (far right in image) which works better than my curved salt shaker (middle in image) for some reason. The curved salt shaker has a volume of ~40ml. When I used the curved salt shaker I saw condensation on the inside of the glass and couldn't get a good hit even though it has a smaller volume. When using my 190ml bottle, I feel it is hard to get a good hit of thick vapour because as I am pulling it, the first 190ml is simply fresh air.

Would you say it is wise to downsize to a small rectangular salt shaker or could I make my small curved shaker work?

I have an alternative salt shaker which is ~30ml in volume (far left in image), which may work the best out of the three options but I have not drilled a hole yet.

Which do you think would be most suitable?

Here is the image

Deleted post as the previous post and this post were a bit confusing so I have modified the first post to be a lot more clear