When it comes to oil, wax, shatter, or whatever kind of concentrate you have, picking the right size rig size can make a lot of difference. Most dab hands are flavor aficionados, so working with the right equipment ensures you maximum flavor profiles, effectiveness of your dab and overall experience.
Dab rigs are similar to bongs for dry herb in the sense that they use water to swirl and cool your hit. But concentrates differ from herb, though, in what that smoke is made of. With dry herb you're getting smoke and bi-products created from combustion, usually flame (although can laser bongs be far away?). With dabs, that smoke is really a vapor created from a residual heat from a heated nail.
When dabbing first broke into the mainstream, dabbers often put heating elements on their large water pipes and called it a day. But dab rigs have changed significantly over the past several years, and dabbers have traded in beaker bongs and straight tubes for dab rigs that are half the size or smaller. Of course, larger pieces always make for an impressive presence!Â
Take the classic faberge egg rig design, for example. Fab eggs aren’t small in stature, but they possess a tight water chamber to bounce water and concentrate vapor against the walls of the piece. The point of concentrates is for a drag-free smoke, and that requires condensed chambers to easily send the vapor directly to your lungs.
After the style and shape of the rig itself, buyers are typically most interested in the nail—the piece of the pipe that the concentrates are vaporized upon. Nails come in several styles and materials and may be purchased separately or sold with the rig. If buying a nail separately, always make sure the size and “gender” of the attachment fit your current rig or glass pipe. Some nails come with a universal or adjustable fit, while others are one-dimensional.
Vapor differs from smoke in many ways, right down to it’s finer consistency of smoke particles. So, just like raindrops form from condensed water vapor that comes together to form solids, so does vapor from oil. So, using the wrong temperature or the wrong size equipment to dab, means a loss in more ways than one.
Not to worry.
What’s the Difference Between a Bong and Rig?
Both bongs (for herb) and dab rigs (for oil) are technically water pipes in that they pull a hit through water for cooling and filtration. What makes a bong a bong and a rig a rig is the add on tool. When smoking dry, you use an herb slide (bowl). When smoking concentrates, you use a nail.
So, while you could use any water pipe as a bong or a rig, there are other things to consider if you want the best dab rig for your precious concentrate.
Bongs for dry herb use heat from a flame to combust the material and create smoke. It also converts any THC-A into THC, but that’s another discussion. Bongs are often large and have percs to condense and cool harsh smoke and filter out debris.
Dabbing uses residual heat and is therefore a vapor that can recondense after being pulled through water? That means to reduce that kind of waste, true dab aficionados use a water pipe with fewer percs and less interior space.
Micro rigs are becoming more common in dabbing crowds specifically to savor the flavor. Not only are these little rigs heavy hitters that deliver premium tastes, but they can be the most portable of pipes. As long as it can hold a nail, it’s a rig no matter how small it is.
Different Rig Sizes
Water pipes are usually measured by height, and the size of the joint. No, not that kind of a joint. A water pipe joint  is where the bowl or nail slides into the downstem. Joints are either ground (sandblasted) or groundless (clear), and have male or female anatomy.
That’s right, your bong has sex. A male joint works with female gear, and female joints take male add ons. An add on is a removable tool like a bowl (herb slide), nail (domed or domeless) and much bigger oil buckets. There’s also other cool attachments like reclaimers and ash catchers that improve performance and reduce dirty water.
Now joints and their corresponding add on tools are measured in millimeters and come in three standard sizes, 10mm 14mm and 18mm. Don’t bust out a ruler, because those sizes aren’t exact and are rounded to nice even numbers.
Plus, there’s a trick you can use to measure; if a dime is larger than the joint, it’s 14mm. If a dime can just cover the joint, it’s 18mm.
Both joints and add ons are tapered to be male or female bits. Â These bits come together (pervert), creating a snug, airtight seal as one slides into the other (get your mind out of the gutter). Snug connections deliver optimal performance whether being used as a bong or rig.
So, size of the joint is a big consideration when buying the best rig. You can pull much more air more quickly through an 18mm joint than you can through a 14mm or 10mm one. But that also means you use your lung capacity much faster too. If the rig is large or has lots of percs, clearing the chamber in one breath is next to impossible.
Dabbing is Both Art and Science
Dabbing is still an evolving way to consume. Many advances in the science have come about because of growing interest and awareness. People used to think you had to heat a nail red hot, probably because most nails used to be some sort of metal. But today, people are aware that much lower temperatures are needed, especially with the growing popularity of quartz and glass tools nails which heat more quickly and last longer with lower temp dabs.
Low temp dabs has become because of flavor profiles. The scent that plants like cannabis produce come mainly from the extremely aromatic terpenes of the plant. Extractions have become more and more thorough as dabbing those extractions became more and more popular. This means than can even separate terpenes from other plant matter. So, concentrates can even have added terpenes for flavor.
Temperamental Terpenes
But terpenes are temperamental and flavor can be fleeting. For this reason, those tiny rigs I mentioned called micros often use a 10mm joint and very little water through which to pull, are becoming more and more common.
But these small joints usually have far fewer add ons from which to choose than the standard 14 and 18mm size bongs and rigs. So, while there are fewer nails, fewer bowls and fewer attachments, the smaller, easier-to-cear water chamber means bigger terpene flavor and easy-to-ingest awesomeness.
So What Size Rig is Right for Me?
The short answer is, whichever you prefer. This article has given you some of the considerations that will help you make a personal choice. Technically, any water pipe that can hold a nail can be a rig. But, like Goldilocks, your choice can be juuuust right when you consider all the choices.
First, remember the nature of dabbing. It’s not smoke you’re inhaling like that you get from combusting dry herb. Concentrates vaporize from residual heat applied to a nail. The concentrated vapor is condenses, like a cloud being made up of condensed water particles. That cunning cloud of tasty terps and tantalizing cannabinoids is pulled through water, cooling it quickly, becoming solid again soon as it collects. Whether or not that vapor gets to your lungs depends on the right size for you (and your lungs).
A dab rig that’s too big has too much space, making clearing a chamber quickly nearly impossible, even for the thunder-lungs friend you have. Any vapor left in the chamber will eventually resolidify wherever it gathers and settles. That means most unsmoked vapor is usually left inside the rig (unless you are using a reclaimer) where it eventually condenses back to solid.
Final Thoughts About Dab Rigs
So, when talking dabs, the larger the rig usually means the larger the loss of unclaimed material as well as a loss of flavor. Residual vapor also stales quickly, making your next hit taste worse. And too much water washes traps those poor, innocent, delicious terpenes.
Another consideration on the perfect dab rig for you is complexity of the pipe. If that rig has multiple water chambers and/or percs, like most 18mm water pipes, that puts oil in an impossible place to reclaim or clean. There’s also loss in the water itself, especially if there’s more than one chamber. Oil that could have been inhaled or at least reclaimed is just being flushed away or lost the next time you clean if your dab rig has overly complex percs.
Super small dab rigs, while preserving flavor, have fewer add ons from which to choose. They are becoming more popular, though, with the realization that low temp dabs preserve flavors and deliver maximum performance. Micros also usually cheaper than your high performance herb bong with multiple percs. So, if you also smoke dry herb, the smaller water chamber doesn’t cool combusted smoke as well as a large bong.
Finally, 14mm mid-size rigs are the most popular for being juuuust right in most ways. There’s a wide range of styles and add on attachments. Plus, the size of the chamber on most 14mm rigs means not too much water to pull through, thus preserving flavor profiles. Mid-sized rigs usually have fewer percs and an easier-to-clear chamber.
