I was just thinking(uh oh) about this post some guy made a couple months ago. He was talking about the cleanliness of your tool in correlation to the experience. He was presenting his point in a crappy way which is where the thread ended up going, trying to tell him how he was saying what he was saying was the problem, not what He was actually saying. But I have found recently that I agree with that point. I cleaned my bong recently. I noticed that I had far less nausea or discomfort on the come up. My bong had gotten very dirty, and every time I smoked the nausea got worse. Once I cleaned it, the experience was much smoother. And tasted way better. I don’t know what dmt resin is made out of, but it can definitely add a yucky feeling to it ime. So kids, clean ya bongs for goodness sake!

Can you share some tips on how to clean it? I have an ice bong and it's very difficult to reach some of the spots on its parts, and I can clearly see some yellowish residue on them. Should I soak it in something? I have acetone, but it seems wasteful since I have to dispose of it after I'm done cleaning...

Any tricks you got in your sleeve?

I did an a/b on it. Haha. No really. I taped the female and filled with hot vinegar and shook for a few minutes, rinsed out and repeated with a washing soda (sodium carb or bicarb, I can’t remeber which is which, the stronger one) with a little lye added. Shook for a while. Most of it came off that way, I have some small pipe brushes that I used to scrub where I could. Had a nice scent to it when I was done, compared to that awful, dirty dmt pipe smell. For a minute anyway 😉

To dissolve freebase residues off of glass try using acids (not bases) as these will convert the residue into salt form, also making them water soluble. It’s nothing too fancy, just a simple yet logical process.

In order to save and recycle the residues, which might still be active, fill the glass piece with some isopropyl alcohol, shake it a couple of times, collect solvent in a jar and finally evap it or enhance some leaf when there are enough “pulls” collected.

If recycling is not desired then add some table salt in the piece (unground preferred or not too powdered) together with the ipa and shake thoroughly a couple of times. The salt will grind nicely on the glass walls and get stubborn stains out quite well. To finish it up and clean remaining residues (like alkaline stains and w.e) add some white distilled vinegar to the piece and give it another couple of shakes. This should bring it back to a clear clean state. Extremely stubborn stains should come off with a bit of hot water in the ipa-salt mix, that would greatly increase solubility.

After the initial solvent/acid treatment make sure to rinse the piece properly a couple of times. At this stage you could use some dish detergent and give it a light wash to ensure all traces of the used chems are gone.

Hope this helps you get your piece back to being fresh. As morpheus says, it makes a huge difference clean vs dirty whatever you plan on using it for..

My advice would be to clean it after every use. While some might find this a bit OCD-ish, I made a discipline out of it and there are only benefits to be harvested from practicing it.

I just use isopropyl and clean as I do any weed smoking device. Soak, shake, rinse, repeat.

My understanding is that DMT-oxide is the suspected culprit in "nastier" trips that are the result of nasty pipes. I know the one time I had my ass handed to me by a geometric Kali, I had been hitting a fairly well-used device...

I’ll also get this terrible hit mid session on my dirty bong. I have an oil rig turned bong, so it has the collection section of the stem before it goes into the water. That had built up the nastiest goo and I’m guessing after smoking enough that goo gets hot enough to give me this rip that sucks the air outta me. It’s a sensation like I’m trying to gasp for air but I can’t get a breath for a couple seconds until I cough my brains out. Not pleasant on take off, that’s for sure.

When my GVG gets enough brown oil that I can't see through it anymore, I will put enough solvent in it to fill up a third of the pipe, close both ends with my thumbs, and heat the whole pipe while shaking under running hot water. It won't do much to the oils--they'll soften when you heat but won't come off.

Pour that solvent into a vessel and evap.
I have recovered a surprising amount of spice this way-- enough for two solid hits easily.

Then after letting the solvent evaporate from the pipe insides, I do the same thing with everclear-- this will actually clean the pipe of the plant fats, oils, and scunge that makes it so nasty-- after several minutes of shaking it looks as new as it did brand new.

I definitely noticed this when I first started out using an oil burner.

had a reg titanium nail on my rig when pouring it in sometimes tiny specks would shoot down the middle part where the smoke suposed to go evetually that built up in the tube! One time i dumped half a hit (second hit) down the middle so pissed went and bought a quartz bucket right away haha cleaned it with some iso alcohol and qtips in less than 5 mins no need trying to save it at that point