Of course, what matters most is the quality of your cannabis and smoke but when you are thinking of buying an ice bong you might not want to stick with a design you’ve already tried. Going for Cheap bongs for sale may seem to be a good idea if you’re a novice, but if you’re looking for an ultimate bong experience, percolators are usually the best.
If you are looking for a new bong experience perhaps knowing about one or two other things about percs and downstems will come in useful.
Downstems
There was a time when downstems were the only type of percolators available and they distinguished the dry pipes from the water pipes. Even though it has a few long-established pluses, with the advent of new designs, downstems seem less favored. Their main advantage though is their diminutive size which also makes them pocket friendly and easy-to-handle. They are also super easy to keep clean and maintain. As well as popular downstem designs on the market there are stemless bongs that also use downstem percolators.
The most likable feature of the downstem is still its simple mechanism. Just a single tube set in water into which air passed in bubbles. Since the rules are that the bigger the surface area, the greater the percolation, the design of the percolator always includes a few holes or a more intricate mini percsat system sitting at the close of the stem to create upsurge for the bubbles to ride. Any basic bong can be pepped up by toting a downstem.
Tree Percs
The first percolator to deviate in design from the conventional downstem percolators is the tree percolator. It is designed to create more surface area for diffusion and a smoother hit. Basically, there’s a cluster of smaller arms resembling tree limbs high up in the middle tube that run down from the linked tip into the water. Each arm has up to 3 openings for diffusion. The air coming from underneath is routed into the main tube via the arms of the perc and passes into the water in the form of bubbles.
Despite being commonly used, the design of this percolator is not the best and it has clear shortcomings. The most common being its structural fragility. The arms are quick to break and as they do they detach from the main stem.
Resistance is least in the upper two or three openings of each arm which is why the smoke persists mostly at these levels. It’s the level of percolator that affects the resistance. Only rarely are all the arms of the tree perc fixed in a straight line and any of the upper arms will show less resistance and have more smoke passing through them than the lower ones. Also, a bong that needs tilting to smoke will always have one side of the tree perc nearer to the water surface than the other, which makes one side of the perc totally redundant.
Regardless of its shortfalls, some people prefer a bong with tree perc. It could be because of their graphic veneers or some wistful nostalgia about when this perc was a major bong player. That said, even today a tree perc bong gets the job done just fine.
You might not be into all the technicalities surrounding ice bongs or bongs in general, but you are almost certain to be into how to get a good smoke. Although the classic tree percs and downstems are considered so old school, there are very good reasons why they are still around.
