Homemade Bongs: Improvising Your Smoking Tools
At some point, every smoker experiences the same problem. You (and maybe some friends) decide to smoke some premium flower, only to find that you’re lacking the utensils. Maybe you forgot your bowl at a friend’s house, or it recently broke. You’re out of papers, and you don’t have a vape. You’re left without any options. Luckily, there’s hope. Inside every stoner is an engineer waiting for their chance to shine. You can save the day with an improvised homemade bong or pipe.
An astute stoner can turn anything into a smoking apparatus. Stories abound of enterprising smokers creating pipes out of glass or plastic bottles, and the apple bong has achieved a near-legendary status in stoner lore. In this post, we’ll outline a few time-honoured methods of improvising smoking devices in our guide to homemade bongs.
Highlights:
- Improvised smoking tools can help in a pinch
- Homemade bongs can be single-use or long-lasting
- Anything is fair game: fruit, veggies, metal, glass, etc.
- Never use plastic as a bowl piece
General Rules and Precautions
Homemade Bongs: Improvising Your Smoking Tools
Before you start creating your improvised smoking masterpiece, there are a few important rules to keep in mind. These rules apply to any homemade bong, regardless of the style or materials you ultimately decide to use.
No Plastic Bowls!
Never apply a flame directly to plastic. Only pack you weed into metal, glass, or some kind of fruit. Burning plastic releases hazardous toxins like hydrochloric acid, dioxins, furans, heavy metals, sulphur dioxide, and various particles.
Inhaling these chemicals can result not only in short-term harm, but long-term health complications like cancer. While it’s ok to use some types of plastic, like pens, for the mouthpiece of an improvised bong, never use plastic as a bowl.
Instead, consider using some kind of bowl piece that is highly heat-resistant. Mouthpieces for trumpets, trombones, or any other brass instrument are actually perfect improvised bowls. When smoking out of a fruit or veggie, you can use aluminum foil to line your bowl, but never apply direct flame to tin foil. It can and will burn, and you don’t want to inhale that.
Choose Materials Carefully
You need to make sure you choose a fruit with enough structural integrity to stand up to the abuse it needs to take. Rotten fruit or anything too squishy won’t be particularly suitable here. Likewise, applying heat to metals may not be a good idea.
Likewise, metals are extremely conductive, meaning they can get very hot when something applies heat to them. Applying too much heat to metal components may make them too hot to handle. Consider using some kind of insulation – like glass, fabric, or even paper towels – if your homemade bong features lots of metal parts.
Homemade Bongs: Examples and Instructions
Homemade Bongs: Improvising Your Smoking Tools
Here, we’ll outline some common household items that you can use to create homemade pipes. We’ll also provide a step-by-step guide to creating functional homemade bongs and pipes from each one of them.
Glass Bottles
Glass bottles make some of the best long-term improvised bongs. Glass is highly resilient to temperature, and you can also clean it (unlike many of the other entries on this list). A well-crafted homemade glass pipe can actually replace specially-made bongs, and some of them can even be works of art.
However, they also require the most work. You’ll also need some power tools. First, use a drill to make a hole for the downstem/bowl piece. Measure the hole carefully – if it’s too wide, your bowl will fall inside the chamber, and your bong won’t work.
Apple Pipes
Fruit and vegetables are more than just an important part of a balanced diet. They can also make great improvised pipes!
Everyone has heard stories about homemade apple pipes, but they may not have tried making one themselves. In a pinch, apple pipes are a great way to get high.
To make an apple pipe, all you really need is an apple and a knife. Cut a hole in the top of the apple (where the stem comes out) to create the bowl. Then, use the knife to carve a hole from the side of the apple into the bottom of the bowl. Now you’re ready to get smoking!
There are several modifications you can make to the apple pipe – for example, adding the empty outer ring of a pen as a mouthpiece or lining the bowl with aluminum foil. If you’re feeling industrious, you can also cut a second hole into the opposite side of the apple to create a carb.
Corn Cob Pipe
The apple pipe may be the best-known improvised pipe made from a fruit. However, there’s another iconic piece you can make from a common veggie, too: the corn cob pipe. According to legend, corn cob pipes first appeared in 1869 in Missouri. They quickly became popular, and became a trademark accessory to hardy, industrious, and hardworking people.
Making a corn cob pipe is fairly easy, although it does take more work than an apple pipe. You’ll need an ear of corn, a knife, a drill, and a mouthpiece (sticks are commonly used).
- First, use the knife to whittle the stick into a point.
- Drill a hole down the middle of the stick.
- Use the knife to cut the corn cob in half. Then, carve out a bowl about an inch deep.
- Drill another hole into the base of the corn cob, large enough to fit the mouthpiece into.
- Insert the mouthpiece into the bottom of the corn cob bowl.
- Pack some weed into your pipe, smoke, and enjoy!
Gravity Bong
Many smokers may have heard of gravity bongs before. A better name for these improvised smoking devices might be “suction bongs,” since they actually utilize suction – many don’t involve using gravity at all.
Making a gravity bong is easy, and you can use trash to do it. One easy way to make a gravity bong is to cut the top off a 2-litre bottle of soda. Then, take a smaller soda bottle (12 or 20 ounces work fine) and cut the bottom off of it. Finally, attach a bowl piece to the top of the smaller bottle. You can drill a hole in the bottle cap, or just remove the cap entirely and use duct tape to seal the bowl into the bottle’s mouthpiece.
Now, fill the 2-litre bottle with water. Insert the smaller bottle so that it’s nearly submerged (but not entirely). Next, pack the bowl, light it, and begin gently lifting the smaller bottle upwards. Don’t break the seal between the water and the bottom of the smaller soda bottle! Suction from the water will pull smoke through the bowl turn the inside of the smaller soda bottle into a chamber filled with smoke. Remove the bowl piece, and inhale from the mouthpiece of the soda bottle. Gravity bongs can get smokers extremely high, so be careful with them!
Become a Pipe MacGyver
Regardless of which method you choose for your improvised pipe, the end goal is the same: get high. You’ll also be able to revel in the satisfaction that you created your improvised bong with your own ingenuity. If you understand the basics of improvised bong making, you can turn any number of household items into a workable smoking utensil. As always, if you need some quality weed to pack into your homemade bowl, trust Greenz to deliver!
