Dab Straw: A Fun, Simple Solution to Dabbing

Anyone that knows anything about me knows that I love dabs, which is just a slang term to refer to butane extracted cannabis hash oil.  As a glassblower they really appeal to me because they go hand in hand with the craft considering many dabbing apparatuses are designed to be heated with a torch.  I've always been planning on producing dabarratuses like I like to call them, but I've been held back due to lack of tools.  No longer so much of an issue, I share with you my new favorite thing to make, dab straws. For the dabbers coming to Anarchapulco, we will have kits available for sale. 

I first heard about them on Facebook, when someone shared some pictures of a dab straw design.  Before then it wasn't even something I had considered.  It's loosely based off of a gimmicky product known as the nectar collector (or maybe the other way around, which came first? Chicken or egg?).  It works by you heating the end with a little torch like the one in the picture above. Once it's red hot, you dip it into dab that you've already put into your dish and inhale, like your sucking through a straw.  These aren't my favorite smoking devices, but they are nice because they allow people to determine how much they want by how much they inhale.  Whatever they dont smoke is left in the dish for later.  It seemed so simple that I just had to try it.

It started with the dish in the above picture.  I was working on a huge order of 100 bubblers and honestly getting a bit tired with the project.  Glassblowing is a lot of fun but making the same thing 100 times in a row gets a bit old no matter what you're doing. To keep myself motivated and creative I started setting little reward projects for myself.  Get the kiln filled and I could make something fun, small, to keep or give away.  This started with a fumed green hair bead, that's currently in my dreads. I made this dish with the intention of making the straw too, for the set to test on our good friend Erika. She adored it, but I'm not sure I've given her a piece that she hasn't at least liked a little.  She sees beauty in quarks, an admirable quality. 

The pieces you see above are the product of my little rewards.  They were fun little learning experiences and have now become some of my favorite quick things to produce.  To test the concept at home, we tried dabbing out of her dish with a straight glass blowtube.  It worked remarkably well and made us assured that we wouldn't show up to give these things to our friends and make ourselves look like assholes.

We decided to make a set for another good friend in the community, someone who's mused about buying glass but hadn't yet.  We showed up with the dish above and the straw in the pictures below and apparently impressed him.  

I had the most fun with the dish, which was just clear tube fumed, wrapped with clear, black, red and blue and shaped.  With some tips from John, I made the neatest, nicest dish I've made thus far.  I've made an ashtray in this time that almost makes me laugh now, with these new tricks I'll make a new one as it was intended for my favorite local friend for his birthday, a fan of ciggarettes but not cannabis. 

It's really hard to capture the colors of fuming with cell phone cameras and crappy lighting.  I found that greens and teals showed up in the fuming, which makes me happy.  

He wasn't really impressed until he tried it.  Before that, it was just a couple pretty hunks of glass in his apartment.  John put a little dab in the dish and handed it to him.  Apparently it was too early for him, as he had just woken up from an unplanned nap.  Eventually, he tried it and his reaction was funny.  His face turned red and he muttered "Fucking hell" before he started coughing.  After he caught his breath he said "Good job, thanks!"

(right up)

For what's essentially a disposable dabbing system, these things rip surprisingly well. This is a great solution for on the go or parties as it doesn't matter if it gets broken.  The straw eventually will break, although every piece is different.  Some will last 200 hits, some 1000. I made this out of blue glass partially to make them more resilient, in the hopes they last a bit longer.  The nice thing is though, the dish theoretically could last forever. 

For anyone coming to Acapulco, I'll have these little kits available for sale.  If your interested in ordering one, contact me!  These are lots of fun to make so I jump at the chance, and they're damn good for how simple they are.  A great entry level dabbing piece, it's very un-intimidating to the new user. They're also pretty, which is a plus.