This is gonna be a little long winded but an interesting read.
I have been swept away by the hype of this RTA (once again uncle Rob is to blame for this) and decided to jump on the bandwagon feet first.
I managed to get my hands on the DL version from a forum member on Thursday.
Taking possession of the RTA I felt like that 14 year boy back in the 70’s that just got his first Scope magazine, without stars on the Boobies, from his school mate who found it under his dads bed. I rushed home eager to try out my new found cherish possession (not the scope magazine but my newly purchased dvarw DL)
Carefully I opened it up and installed my coil. This will be a breeze I thought as I had trained myself to expert level on the sub tank mini’s. All said and done this should be the same principle.....
Yeah right ....
I swear these post screws were designed to never hold a coil wire. Slowly tighten (yes yes its tight) and dam it jumped out again. Hour later and I had the post screws tight. For the first time in my life I found the design flaw in us human coil builders, why the hell weren’t we blessed with three hands. If I just had one more hand I could have tightened those dam wires in a jiffy.
Excitement building I slapped the cap on and filled the tank, sat back and prepared myself for vaping bliss.
35 watts and a deep lung draw and I got 5 mls of juice straight down my throat, on my shirt and everywhere.
Yip I shall take my place in the que ...
After a cleanup (whoever invented paper towels I salute you) and rewick (this time with cap fitted) it was time to try again
Wow
Wow
Wow
Dam remember that scope magazine without the stars, well let me be honest,
the absolute euphoria of vaping on this RTA far surpassed the euphoria of staring at those rossie little (......) on those ladies in that scope magazine.
On Saturday morning I bumped into a fellow dvarw master who built me a superb coil and showed me how to wick with perfection
All I can say uncle Rob, this is not chicken dinner this is CHICKENS dinner (like 50 chickens devoured concurrently without stopping to chew).
Finally I had got to the ultimate,
I had climbed the “Everest” of vaping
Then it happened .....
On Saturday evening I decided to rewick and try a different juice
As I removed the wick I tugged it to hard and yip it happened, my nemesis, that dam wire came out of the post.
And the emotional roller coaster ride started again.....
Gently screw, yes yes clamped ... no no it jumped out .... After a half an hour I had definitely earned my Sergeant Major strips. I could swear and curse just like the best of them.
Finally the coil was secured.
I then made that unforgivable mistake .... never ever try and tighten those post screws to tight.
As I cranked it tighter it happened. The post screw snapped inside the post.
The emotional roller coaster hit the big downhill dip (the one where the whole world comes crashing down around you)
I was completely devastated. Looking at the damage I quickly realized my dvarw days had come to an abrupt end a mere 48 hours later
Bitterly disappointed I went to bed last night my world had crashed. I thought the most disappointing time of my life was back to that scope magazine where I eagerly paged through it excited to get to the center spread just to find it had been removed.
This morning (Sunday) I woke up and decided to call the one person who I knew could possibly save me. If anybody could save this RTA it would be Rowan Francis.
I called up Rowan and he collected my RTA this morning. I honestly had little to no hope that he could fix it given the complex and intricate task at hand.
How do u remove a piece of threaded metal jammed solid in a hole less that a 1mm wide sitting half a millimeter deep in that hole.
This afternoon at 4 pm Rowan phones me to say my RTA is fixed and I can come and fetch it. I was gobsmacked
Working from home, in his garage, Rowan had managed to drill right through the stuck piece of metal and then remove it.
I just have to say this again, working with tolerances in microns and having to drill absolutely dead straight he did this. Here he was drilling knowing that if he was not absolutely perfectly dead center and perfectly lined up he would completely ruin this RTA by damaging the thread and render it completely useless. This takes nerves of steel and demonstrates an absolute master at his best
These pictures show the piece that was removed by drilling down right through the middle of it to remove it
Mr Francis, you Sir are a master and I salute you. I never ever thought this could be done using a drill press.
So here we are again....
RTA fitted with new screws taken from “Insider RTA”
And a very emotional draining lesson learnt ... I shall never ever ever crank tight those screws again....
Right now I’m in vaping Nevara again.
All I’m now missing is that dam center spread from the scope magazine (issue 24 dated 20 Sept 1974) if anybody has a copy of that for me
And guess it’s Dvarw group award time.
I get the honorary award for being the first person to snap off a post screw deep in the post
What a roller coaster story @Blends Of Distinction... I got happy and sad and happy with you! @Rowan Francis you rock dewd!
But glad all ended well and we have another Dvarw'er with us.
