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What is the use of screens or gauze? Are they really necessary when smoking or vaping weed? Or can you just grind a bit rougher? In this article we explain why screens play an important role and when you could possibly do without them.
What does a Screen do?
A screen or gauze is a type of filter that blocks pieces of smoking material and ash. It prevents crumbs or pieces from entering your mouth and eventually your lungs. This is disastrous for your lungs and makes the smoking experience very unpleasant. Screens are used with almost all types of smoking. Weed pipes, bongs, shishas and also vaporizers.
Vaporizer Screens - Is it really necessary?
When using a convection vaporizer you suck hot air through your weed, hash or concentrates. With a conduction vaporizer it works a little differently, but there is also the possibility of pieces of weed being sucked up and into your mouth. Just as with a bong or weed pipe, it is very unpleasant if a hot piece of weed enters your mouth and even harmful to your health if it ends up in your lungs.
But not every vaporizer is built the same. Take the Arizer Solo II for example. The glass tube also functions as a filter, because inside the tube is a plate of glass with holes in it. Arizer even recommends not to put metal screens in vaporizers with a glass screen when smoking weed, because it can negatively influence the taste of the weed.
Vaping weed without a screen
There are several vaporizers with a glass screen. Take a good look at your vaporizer and how fine the holes in the inhalation tube are. Vaping weed without a metal screen is often possible, but you do need to pay attention to a number of things. Firstly, it is important not to crumble the weed so finely as you would do to make a joint. Especially with hybrid vaporizers (in which both hot air and direct heating provide the vaporization) rough pieces of weed work fine.
Remove the twigs from the buds and do not overfill the herb chamber. Pressing is not necessary, as it prevents air from flowing through the weed. If you press the weed too hard, it will be heated unevenly and the quality of the vaping experience will be ruined after one or two puffs.
Vaping weed without a screen is possible, as long as the vaporizer itself is equipped with a way to prevent pieces of weed from entering your mouth. In reality, however, this is only the case with 1 in 10 vaporizers. With all other vaporizers you'll need to use appropriate screens.
These screens are specially designed for (weed) pipes or compatible bongs. You fold the spoon around the bowl/cup after placing it.
What size Screen?
It may surprise you that the best screen size does not fit perfectly. If the screen fits your bong, vaporizer or weed pipe with difficulty, you have the right one. In the Dutch-Headshop web shop we do our best to put the right screens with the recommended products. Are they not there? Then it's probably in the extensive product description.
A screen should be slightly curved due to the tight fit. This prevents the weed from leaving with the screen and all the way to your mouth, but also prevents crumbs from being pulled along the mesh. In short, if it's tight, the screen sits well.
Note that some vaporizers, bongs and pipes require two types of screens. For instance in the mouthpiece and in the herb chamber or bowl. Read the product description carefully on our website or check the user manual.
Two types of screens for the Arizer V-Tower, for example.
Wax, hash and concentrates
If you want to vape concentrates you almost always need extra accessories such as concentrate pods, special screens or drip pads. So also for hash. Sticky hash such as charas, balls and pressed hash don't just dislodge pieces, unlike polm hash. This makes it a little easier to smoke or vaporize without a screen. Nevertheless we strongly recommend it, because when hash gets hot the consistency can change quite a bit. Just like oil or syrup it becomes thinner and more fluid when you heat hash. This can also cause pieces to come to the surface.
Drip pad, liquid pads and concentrate pods. All different names for the same purpose: vaping concentrates.
Please note that not every vaporizer is suitable to vaporize hash with. You can filter on vaporizers that are suitable for hash in the vaporizer categories in the web shop. Some vaporizers are not suitable for vaporizing hash out of the box, but can be made hash-ready with so-called vape wool. This is degummed fiber hemp to make the hash stick. This prevents the herb chamber of your vaporizer from becoming irreparably dirty and damaged. Vape wool is a nice interim solution, but again not every vaporizer is suitable for a combination of vape wool and hash. This may sound confusing when you read it here, but if you look in the vaporizer shop, you'll see that you can also filter on that. So it's pretty self-explanatory there.
When it comes to wax, dabs and concentrates, the vaporizer must be suitable for them. Storz & Bickel vaporizers such as the Volcano Hybrid often come with drip pads. These are stainless steel screens on which you can place your weed concentrates. They fill up automatically and prevent the liquid from leaking into the vaporizer. With the Furna and some other vaporizers you have to buy a special concentration oven or chamber to prepare it for the most concentrated THC.
Replacing your Screens on time
Not only hash, but also weed can be quite sticky. Weed pipes, bongs and vaporizers should therefore be cleaned regularly to remove this unhealthy deposit. The brown stuff is also disastrous for vaporizers and weed pipes. After a while it gets into everything, clogging up small passages and damaging electrical equipment. So clean up!
Cleaning of bongs, vaporizers and pipes also includes replacing the screens. Cleaning a screen is often a hopeless task. If you don't have them in stock anymore, you'll have to order screens online. Measure your dirty screen and buy the same size. This way you know for sure that it all fits and you can continue smoking or vaping with peace of mind.
Need new screens? Check the product page of the device you bought to see which screen fits best. They are either listed in the recommended products or in the detailed product description. Or browse through our ever growing range of vaporizer accessories and weed pipe accessories.