ReikoX's Workshop

[ReikoX]

I was reading up on biochar and how to make it. I saw videos of people making it with huge 55 gal drums. A few more videos and I heard about “rocket stoves”. My dad made a small one of those! So I grabbed a stick from the yard waste and broke them in about six inch pieces, then stuffed them all in the stove.

A small fire was started at the top, and burns down. As it burns, it heats the wood until it out gasses and then that gas is burned. It’s very efficient and clean burning.

Once the stove begins to smolder, I soaked the stove down with the garden hose and dumped out the charcoal. I will soak it in fish fertilizer and let it dry back out before storing it.

I am already fermenting a yucca plant, so I decided to try some other methods of extraction. First I removed the outer skin from the root. For this I took a page from Bubbleman’s book and used my zester to separate the root from the fibers. Now it is drying on parchment paper in a pizza box. I still have more root, I am going to let it dry and save it for later.

[ReikoX]

I got my new CMH bulb today. It came in a comically large box with a bunch of packing peanuts. The difference in spectrum is just what I was looking for.

The Bubba Kush S1 clones are back on track. Here is a close up of the best looking one. This is about a week after I cut all the damaged fan leaves off.

So I wanted to see if my yucca extract was going to work, so I dropped a few chunks in a jug of RO water and shook it up. Not only did it foam, but this is what it looked like about ten minutes after I shook it up. I watered about half a gallon of this in the no-till bed.

I gathered up about 2/3 of a gallon sized bag of charcoal and added about 1/3 gallon of nutrient mix of 10 ml/gal each of CalPhos, Grow, and Fish. I’ll let it soak until tomorrow, then strain it and let it dry.

[Viva_Mexico]

I just got my cmh and they are crazy white!! Congrats!

[ReikoX]

They are both CMH there 3000K Phillip’s on the left, 4200K GE on the right.

[Viva_Mexico]

I have all 4200 at the moment because i only plan on using these in veg. I am super impressed with these.

[Muleskinner]

@ReikoX

They are both CMH there 3000K Phillip’s on the left, 4200K GE on the right.

cool! How many watts? 315’s?

[ReikoX]

Nah, 150-watt.

[oranje]

@ReikoX

Nah, 150-watt.

There’s 150W CMH? I’ve got to look into that I lovelovelove my 315W CMH I’ve got in my flower tent. I’ve been debating going COB for veg tent, but if I can get a baby CMH… that changes things.

[ReikoX]

I would go COB. They run off 150-watt pulse start ballasts. I got three of them free from an old aquarium light.

[Muleskinner]

@oranje

There’s 150W CMH? I’ve got to look into that

agree, I think the reliability is probably rock-solid with the smaller ones too as they’ve been around for years for industrial/commercial use

[ReikoX]

Not much going on in the PC. I’ve been spraying the Crystal Candy with CS nightly. She doesn’t seem to be too happy about it, but it is a form of chemical stress. She’s trying to flower, but I can see the pistils drying up and turning brown from the treatment.

They are getting the DrBudGreenGenes treatment. That means they get fed by submersion; the whole pot is dropped in the feeding solution until the top of the pot is wet. They are being fed every other day with 4 drops of Superthrive, 2 full droppers of Shultz 10-15-10, and 15 ml of fish fertilizer per gallon of water.

My worms for my bin came today. They are in my basement where they will not be disturbed too much. I had to rig a light up over them to keep them from escaping. My daughter is pretty excited about it. She got upset because I put one of the escaped worms in the yard.

We followed the directions and soaked the coco in water for a couple hours. Then we added some torn up newspaper and cardboard. Next we added some soil, some pumice, and some glacial rock dust. We added the worms, then buried a over ripe banana in the upper right corner.

[lotus710]

You should setup a seperate worm bin for yourself with a smart pot and only add good thermal compost, good composted manure, and carbon. Lots of carbon. Use that for your plants. Leave this one for outdoor gardens and for composting kitchen scraps:)

[ReikoX]

Hehe designer vermicompost… I threw a couple hanfulls of worms in my no-till bed.

[LED_Seedz]

Just spent quite a while going through the thread and wanted to say hats off for a great job. Truly a passion for the plant that I can certainly appreciate.

Carry on!

[oranje]

I wish I could keep my plants as happy as my worms My red wrigglers really like green beans, for what it’s worth. About to make mine a banana peel, egg shell, and egg carton salad.

[ReikoX]

The bubbleman pen chronicles continue. I got my pen a couple of weeks ago now, so I have some experience with the device. Overall, I’m starting to like the pen though it does have its flaws. I’ll go into those later.

At first, I was less than impressed with the pen. I was able to melt some Zak Haze rosin and get it in there, but it was buttering up and sticking to the sides, so I lost quite a bit. Now this tank with the Zak Haze rosin worked and tasted pretty good and I was somewhat happy about it. Later the tank broke in my pocket. Luckily very little rosin leaked out and I was able to repair it. This has happened one other time, so now I make it a practice to remove the tank before I put it in my pocket.

I had ordered a second tank, so I filled it up with some Cannatonic rosin. This was easier to get in there, but the tank never hit. I would try and try, and it would just get hot with no vapor. If you hit it a few times in a row, you might get a small hit and the rosin would bubble bubble bubble. One time I hit it so many times, the o-ring blew and most of the rosin started bubbling out. It was quite a mess. Another time I hit it again and again trying to get hit and the battery’s protection circuit went off. It refused to charge. I let the battery alone for 24 hours and it was able to charge.

While the battery was down, I noticed the tank had a piece of paper thar read “do not use more than 14 watts to power the tank”. It got me thinking, is this a standard 510 thread? Yes it is! So I put the tank on my 510 battery and set it to 14 watts. If you have a 510 battery, you could just order the $14 tank. I decided to add some PG to my tank in case the rosin was too thick. these are designed to be diluted after all. I got a few hits from it, but did notice my rosin was quite dirty (a lot of small pieces floating around). So I decided to clean that tank well. I need to test it with some VG to make sure it will hit before re-loading it with some rosin.

Well I killed off the Zak Haze tank and decided to clean it. I was able to fix the tank further after it was clean. It’s a press fitting and I was able to get it to stay pretty well. When listening to Hash Church where Tony mentions you can use rosin, he started by saying you had to decarb it. I believe this serves two purposes. First, it was decarbing in the tank and causing all the bubbling. Second, THCA is what butters or shatters up, so by converting to THC, you are able to keep the rosin in a more oily texture. So I pressed out a gram of Zak Haze rosin and decarbed it at around 200*F for 20 minutes (until the bubbling stopped). I did loose some terpenes, which I guess kind of defeats the purpose, but it has been hitting like a train and tastes as good as hitting the decarbed rosin on the nail. Been hitting this tank all week.

[ReikoX]

The moment you all have been waiting for. The first two Ancestral Skunk #1 are cracking!

[ReikoX]

Two more Ancestral Skunk #1 have popped.

[ReikoX]

The bubbleman pen chronicles, volume III.
So I decided to try this second tank again. I’m starting to think the problem is with the tank. This time I decided I did not want to decarb first because I lost too many terpenes. It is quite effective, but the taste leaves something to be desired. So, I pressed out about a gram of Juanita la Lagrimosa rosin. Next I put about 1/2 gram in my glass syringe and began slowly adding it to the pen. I used my e-nail to melt it into the pen and got it full. I decided I would try and be “smart” and get the bubbles out using a heat gun. It worked great, honestly, it was about smooth as glass and I thought, just a little bit longer. Then all of a sudden, the tank pops and takes off like a bottle rocket. I have no idea where the rosin went, I cleaned a small amount up. Note to self, heat gun is too hot. So I used the other 1/2 gram and got it in there. This time I just left it. I’m trying to get this tank primed without blowing it up for a third time. After an entire day and several battery recharges, I am finally starting to get a hit out of it. To be continued…

Volume IV:
Over at PsychedelicSam’s Another Tincure Thread, Try it You’ll Like It, we were discussing terpenes and the True Terpenes company came up. I was impressed with their extraction techniques. They use organic sources with vacuum distillation to extract non-cannabis derived terpenes. They offer them as individual terpenes and strain blends. I did a bit of digging and found their VISCOSITY product. It is a flavorless, odorless terpene mixture for liquify extracts. At $20 (+$15 shipping) for 2ml, I decided it would also be worth a shot. I may order a few more of their individual terpenes for tincture recipes.

I decided to check out blue river for US sales and noticed they are now selling through the W9 Tech (the makers of the pen) website. So another $89.99 later I got me 0.25ml of Cheese Quake terpenes! think I just bought the last one because it says out of stock on the website now.

[ReikoX]

I was watering today and noticed a different looking leaf, another seed popped. That makes five, or 10% as advertised.

Here is the Crystal Candy that I have been spraying with CS daily for two and a half weeks. She/he is not happy. I can’t tell if she/he is turning into a full blown male yet. She/he is about 4 1/2 weeks old, so definitely stunted.

The rest of the girls. They are about two and a half weeks from seed. They seem a tad over fertilized to me. Next time they will get water only. If the Crystal Candy doesnt reverse I will use some more of that Lowryder pollen i have in the freezer.

Bubbleman Pen Chronicles volume V

The other night I got very frustrated trying to get this other tank to work. I would hit it and hit it and all I would get was lightheaded from sucking in so much. I finally decided it must be defective, so I called fresh headies to see if they would replace it. After explaining what was going on, they told me I would have to call W9 Tech since I’m in the US. W9 Tech was closed, so I had to wait until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I call them and again explain what is going on with the tank. They tell me I need to email support with a copy of my invoice and a description of the problem. So I send them an email and they replied a few hours later with instructions on how to prime the wick. I performed the steps several times and had no luck. So I reply again saying I had no luck.

While waiting for a reply, I decided to clean the tank again. This time I noticed some debris so I cleaned it until the alcohol remained clear. I also scraped the four holes where the pumice wick was with a needle. I filled the tank with PG and let it soak for 30-40 minutes.

While I was waiting I got a reply that they were sending me a new tank. I repeated the priming steps and this time it worked! It really worked well. So my wick is now primed. My True Terpenes shipped and so did my Blue River terpenes. I need to get pressing more rosin. I decided to try some sasquash bags (35 micron). I lost too much using the coffee filters. I could make bubble hash first, but that really lowers yields IME.