New Member from the Bay Area

[StereoFreeze]

Posted in the Welcome area, but though I would post a more detailed introduction here.

New member from Oakland, CA. Found out about Vaping Underground from the site coming up in my Google searches on gear. Originally starting vaping in 2008. First reviews I remember watching were by a guy named Leaford, if anyone remembers those. Started with the cig-a-like style and tried many different ones, but grew frustrated with inconsistent performance and started smoking again. Later tried the larger Ego batteries and clearomizers, but same story I just couldn’t get what I wanted out of them and started smoking again. Went through the Genesis craze of forum waiting lists and classified listings for multiple times the original sales price. The endless forum stalking and pre-orders were maddening. Even after I got my hands on the latest and greatest I couldn’t consistently build a coil and wick a genesis atty to save my life and went back to smoking.

Fast forward several years to 2015 and I had a heart attack at 36. It was fairly mild as far as heart attacks go and I had two stents installed. Told myself it was time to get serious about quitting smoking. Went on Chantix and quit smoking for a while then had a small set back while on vacation where I smoked again for a few weeks. What finally got me to quit was the JUUL. Great little device for nicotine delivery and throat hit, terrible for vapor production and the wallet. The refills for it were not cost effective for how quickly I would go through them. Though I do still like to use it when I’m in crowds and want to be discreet.

Got back into “proper” vape gear a month or so ago and have been pleasantly surprised by the all the changes in the industry since I last gave up. I love how much easier stuff is to build on (shout out for the Coil Master kit) and the reliability of the wicking material. Anyone here roll stainless steel wicks or try to coil a Penelope? Just thinking about it makes me frustrated! The availability of quality gear at sane prices is also such a welcome change. My usual setup right now is a Suprimo Spade and Sigelei Moonshot. Also really enjoy the Vector RDA and Griffin tank.

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this. I love talking about gear and trying new stuff and I’m looking forward to spending some time here and contributing to the community. Now someone point me to the classifieds, got a long list of stuff to try.

 

[pulsevape]

yeah I still vape ss mesh wicks in gennys and porous ceramic wicks as well....I've been vaping for getting on 4 years and I've never found a vape as satisfying as gennys...so I stick with them.

 

[StereoFreeze]

Your a better man than me. I could not get the hang of building on gennys, though if I had the tools I have now then it may have been a different story. My builds lacked consistency and I would get pretty frustrated. The coil wrapping jig has definitely been a big help. I even dug out my Zen mini and tried doing a build, it worked, but airflow was too tight so I put away again. Still have a few genny hybrids and atty's might need to do a bit more experimenting.

 

[pulsevape]

Your a better man than me. I could not get the hang of building on gennys, though if I had the tools I have now then it may have been a different story. My builds lacked consistency and I would get pretty frustrated. The coil wrapping jig has definitely been a big help. I even dug out my Zen mini and tried doing a build, it worked, but airflow was too tight so I put away again. Still have a few genny hybrids and atty's might need to do a bit more experimenting.

Fucking z-atty was a lousy genny.....alot of the early gennys were hard to build on..I learned on a aga-t2 I tell you if you could learn how to build on that piece of crap you could build on anything.But I stuck with it because I really don't like the kind of vape I get off cotton...cotton seems to give this sort of lightwieght wispy vape regardless of cloud size.whereas mesh and ceramic give you this kick, and the flavor was much better.I'd try other things but kept going back to my ceramics and my gennys, at that time I was hanging out at ecf and there was a group of us trying to figure out how to make porous ceramic wicks work in a genny,we even made alot of our own wicks ..we used cheap ass gennys because you had to drill out the wick holes to over 3mm to fit a ceramic wick in a genny, and none of us wanted to be drilling out a highend genny, beside you couldn't most wickholes were to close to the post...it took me good while to build a genny well with mesh and after a year of vaping them well...I learned how to build them right....genny design has come along way since the days of the Z-atty, there's been alot of improvement, but yeah still there is not very many of us genheads around..hell nowdays I can walk into vape shops and almost nobody there has actually ever seen a genny or know what they are.

 

[StereoFreeze]

Awesome to see people are still using them. I'm definitely glad for the experience as what I'm building on now seems like a cake walk in comparison. Interesting comparison on the mesh vs cotton. I'm pretty sure I still have some mesh wicks, I'll have to put something together and give it go.

 

[inspects]

Welcome aboard....VU is a great forum with an incredible amount of information and knowledgeable members.

 

[Manimal3497]

 

[pescadore]

Welcome to VU !! It was nice to hear your story.

 

[nabibrian]

welcome to the VU, nice to have you here

 

[StereoFreeze]

Thanks for the welcomes folks.

 

[SteveS45]

Welcome and enjoy your stay!