OK experienced 'rebuilders' look away now.
Attempt 1
Now I'll be the first to admit I was in a rush. Friday night I'd got home from work and was anticipating my girlfriend driving down from Bolton. I had a lot to do to tidy the flat. I'd had a bad day and was a bit tetchy and grumpy. Nevertheless I decided to have a quick go at making a coil. Unliike other posts I'd seen about the RDA it did not come with a ready made coil in place and so if I was going to use it I had to give it a go.
It comes with a small length of fluffy wick..the string I call it (sorry purists) and a length of nichrome coil..the wire I call that.
Now the idea as i understand it (as a rebuildable noob) is to wrap the wire around the string so that when it heats up (hopefully) it nestles next to the juice soaked string thus creating vapour. The string is fed juice via dripping and although it's not a tank (that'll be the RTA also available from Clockworks) it will hold up to 20 drops within the chamber (more apparently if you add fluval or similar).
I would recommend to anyone to watch Tim Greens tutorial video on Clockworks site which is reproduced elsewhere on the forum but a link to his site is here:
http://clockworks-cornwall.co.uk/
I tried to replicate Tims instructions and collected the items he recommended having to hand. I had everything except the paperclip! Damn how could I forget that? Searching high and low I eventually found one but it was quite a chunky affair. Well, it couldn't be a real problem could it? Hmm. I pulled the strands of the string apart as per the video too
My first REAL problem was the gauge of the wire. It was so thin that once a length had been cut I could literally barely see it. This meant that I kept losing it and cutting another length. wasted wire
I found a solution with a modellers table lamp which has a magnifying glass. This helped enormously.
I have mild arthritis in my right hand. This made using Tims method incredibly tricky and it took me several goes to follow the steps in the video. Eventually I managed to wind the wire around the string as it lay along one spine of the (chunky) paperclip as illustrated in his tutorial and attempted to push the two ends of the wire into the very small holes in the posts. This seemed ridulously tricky (like threading a needle) until I realised that I hadn't quite unscrewed the tops sufficently well to reveal the holes. That sorted I pushed them through and screwed them down, snipping off the ends to prevent a short
Twirling the string around the posts as Tim shows I pushed on the chamber tube, added some drops of juice and had a vape.
Eureka! Lovely thick tasty vapour! I'd cracked it
5 draws in however it became acrid and burnt. Doh. I removed the tube and had a gander. the string had come away from the wire. Damn. Epic fail.
And that's how I left it for the weekend. Slightly disheartened..until tonight. Romantic weekend over I had another bash
Attempt 2
I decided that I would try something different. I asked myself why Tim pulled the strands away from each other? Instead I decided to keep it as it was in the packet. Pulling the strands apart tends to thin it out. Secondly instead of cutting the wire to length before the winding process I decided it would be easier for my fingers to keep it as one length. So, using a thinner paperclip than I'd used before and with one finger holding one end of the wire to the string along the paperclips length I wound the wire around using a longer length. This was much easier and quicker and it took 2 seconds to do. Clipping the ends that would go in the hole posts it was fitted quickly.
Two other things I should have remembered from Clockworks site (but can't recall if I did during Attempt 1) were to eensure that with the outer post in the 9 oclock position the coil must be on the other side of the posts and the small air hole on the tube to the chamber should be at 11 0'clock position.
So with a slightly fatter/thicker piece of 'string' and the set up recommended on the website perfected I dripped 20 drops in (happens to be Redwood Blend) and fired it up..
WOWEE! what a difference..thick tasty satisfying vapour, wicking perfectly so far
I'm sorry I didn't take pics for those that would have liked them but just wanted to document briefly my experiences so far
Thicker string. Thinner paperclip. Long length windaround (lol). These are my tips