What is a Dab Rig - Anatomy of an Dab Pipe
So what is a dab rig, really? It’s usually smaller than standard bongs and water pipes yet holds the same structure as one. It uses the same water filtration process but the only major difference is that instead of a bowl it uses a dab nail (also known as a quartz banger or titanium nail). In order to heat your concentrate, wax, shatter, rosin, or live resin you need to vaporize it and a normal glass bowl cannot withstand such high temperatures.
Understanding how a dab rig work is essential if you are going to buy the right wax rig for yourself or if you are looking to enhance your dabbing experience. Let’s break down all the components of a dab bong and how the dab smoke travels through your wax rig.
How The Cannabis Smoke Travels Through a Glass Dab Rig
At first glance with a glass dab rig anyone is bound to scratch their head a bit. The best way to learn is to understand how the process works from beginning to end. That means from when we light the concentrate in the dab nail and how the smoke travels through the wax rig and into your lung. Understanding how your dab glassware functions is vital. Let’s break it all down!
The Dab Nail - Where the Journey Begins in Your Dab Glass
Every dab rip’s journey begins within the dab nail. You take your dab wand and you swab a bit of dab and keep it ready on the side. You must heat your dab nail with a butane torch to a whopping 350°F to 400°F. Most proficient dab rig users know to heat the dab nail until it turns red and then let it cool off for about 10 seconds. Then you place your dab wand with the concentrate in and inhale and this vaporizes the concentrate and allows you to pull it through your oil rig.
What is a Dab Joint for in your Dab Pipe?
A dab joint is used to hold the dab nail to the water pipe to make a functional dab pipe. Without it you may have vapor leaks or your dab nail will not fit all together with your dab rig. Most dab bongs have certain dab joint sizes so make sure to check before purchasing any additional dab nails. Once the activated concentrate vapor passes through the joint it then enters into water pipe and it’s time for filtration!
What does the Percolator Diffusion Process Look like inside a Dab Bong?
Depending on how your dab rig most likely you will have a percolation difusser. This is just a fancy way of describing a glass tube with slits in it. When you inhale your dab bong the slits produce bubbles in the water which acts as cooling surface area for your vapor concentrate to travel through. This cooling makes your dab rips much smoother.
The Glass Dab Rig Water Chamber and What it Does
The water chamber works one in the same with the percolator diffuser. The water filters out toxins and resin and also acts as a cooling surface once again to further deliver a smooth hit to your lungs. So think of the diffusion and water chamber as two components working together to filter and cool the concentrate vapor in your dab rig.
What Does the Neck of the Wax Dab Rig do?
The neck is the last travel way in which the vapor of your dabbing concentrate travels through. The longer the neck the more time the smoke has to cool yet again. Sometimes you will see tiny grooves in the neck and this is what is known as an ice pinch. You simply drop an ice cube down your dab rig neck and the ice cube locks in place going even more cooling surface area for the vapor to travel through.
MouthPiece of Your Dabglass - The End of Your Dab Journey
Finally, the end of your dabbing journey ends with the mouthpiece of your dab rig. For most of the entire process, you have been inhaling through the mouthpiece and once the vapor enters into your lung you have completed an entire cycle of dabbing with your dab rig! Congratulations!
Buy Dab Rig - Expert Shopping Tips
If you want to buy a dab rig there are a lot of questions you need to ask yourself. Finding the perfect dabbing rig for you is all about preference. Listed below are some of the common questions to ask yourself and provided are solutions for best options of concentrate rigs that would fit these personal needs. Here at Daily High Club we have cool dab rigs and unique dab rigs for sale that will fit your personality and expression.
Are You Smoking Your Dab Rig at Home or On the Go?
This is the big question here! If you are smoking your dab rig behind closed doors mostly then a standard glass dab rig is the perfect option for you. But if you are always on the go and you want to take your oil rig with you then the best option would be to use a silicone dab rig. Silicone dab rigs are shatterproof and most can just fold up and be concealed very easily. So depending on your lifestyle picking the right one can reduce a lot of future headaches!
Do You Need a Wax Bong that Hits Ultra Smooth?
As mentioned above in the journey of how the concentrate vapor travels through a dab rig, cooling is done in the water chamber with the diffuser. If you have sensitive lungs or you just want a much softer experience with your rig but still reap the maximum benefits then buying a dab rig without a diffuser for cooling. If you want maximum cooling you may want to get a recycler dab rig.
What Type of Rig For Wax Do You Need? Analog or Electric rig?
As the cannabis industry progresses so do the products. It’s no surprise that the dab rig has stepped into the field of electric so the big debate for whether classic analog rigs for wax are the best or electric dab rigs are is entirely preference. The major difference with using an electric dab rig is you do not have to use a butane torch to heat your dabs, which is pretty awesome. The only downside is the cost of entry is much higher than buying an entire analog dab rig setup (including the dab wand, dab torch, and other dab accessories).
Are You Using Badder, Budder, Rosin, Live Rosin, Shatter, or Resin?
Using a dab rig can get a bit tricky because dabbing is an umbrella word to a lot of types of concentrates. These concentrates include badder, budder, rosin, live rosin, shatter, and resin. If you have found your perfect concentrate soul-mate such as shatter then it would be best to use a titanium dab nail because the heat distribution is much more optimal for a denser and thicker substance. The titanium nail retains heat much longer so it’s better for dabs such as shatter, wax, and resin. If you prefer live rosin with your dab oil rig then using a quartz banger is better. Quartz bangers are better suited for live rosin, badder, and budder.
How to Use a Dab Rig in 4 Easy Steps
Learning how to use a dab rig is easy although it may not seem so easy at first glance. The trick to understanding how to use your wax rig is by first understanding that just about everything is the same with your dabber rig as it is with your bong. You light the flower and inhale, the smoke gets filtered through the water, and that’s that! Using a dab rig is only different because the substance you are lighting is not flower but instead concentrates. Concentrates need to be heated to 350°F to 400°F and once you place the dab inside these temperatures the dab vaporizes allowing you to inhale the vapor into your wax bong rig. Let’s go over all the steps on how to use a dab rig!
1. Add Water in Your Dab Rig and Prepare Concentrate
If you are looking at at a brand spanking new dab rig than you are going to want to first put water into your dabbing rig. Just enough water to cover the diffuser at the bottom. You can test this by inhaling on the mouthpiece and making sure the diffuser bubbles up.
2. Place Concentrate On Dab Wand and Set Aside
After that take your dab wand and swab a small amount of concentrated and leave on the side. Unlike bongs, you do not place the concentrates inside the banger as you would by placing flowers inside a bong bowl. The dab nail (equivalent to what a bong bowl is) remains empty until it is properly heated to optimal temperatures 350-400 degrees – which we will talk about next!
3. Torch Dab Nail Until Red (Let Cool for 15-30 Seconds)
With your dab wand set to the side with concentrate on, the next step is to pick up your dab rig and get a firm hold on it. Make sure you are not near anything combustible or flammable. Take your dab torch and light the dab nail. Keep the flame on it until the dab nail turns red. The reason we wait for the dab nail to turn red is because most often than not we don’t have the equipment to measure if our dab nail heated to optimal temperatures of 350-500 degrees Fahrenheit, so the next best thing to do is heat the dab nail until it is red and then let it cool for 15-30 seconds. This little trick usually gets the dab oil rig’s nail to the optimal temperature.
4. Vaporize Concentrate and Inhale
The final step on learning how to use a dab rig is the best part. Once the dab rig’s nail (whether it be quartz or titanium) is heated to optimal dabbing levels, you want to take the wand with the concentrate and place it directly inside the wax oil rig nail. You will see the concentrate begin to evaporate and this is what you inhale in. Now you have completed your first dabbing session – not so hard, right?
