What Is A Dabbing Nail And How Do You Pick One?

What Is A Dabbing Nail And How Do You Pick One?

What is a Dabbing Nail and How Do You Use It? from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

As dabbing concentrates takes over the smoking community, a prevalent question is usually “Which nail is best for me?” As you take your dabbing journey, it’s essential to find tools that are safest, most efficient, and definitely trustworthy. Should you use a regular nail? A longer based steel nail?

If you are not even sure what dabbing marijuana is or how to do it, check out this article on "What Is Dabbing Marijuana?" that we have up on our site to become educated on the subject.

So if you are going to dab marijuana, what is the best nail to use? Titanium nails, or “TI” nails, are superior nails for dabbing. Other types of metallic materials can leech and cause harmful fumes. Use titanium and know the source of who you are buying your nail from. Chinese titanium and other various aerospace grade titanium contain a lot of filler. "All filler, no killer" usually leads to gross tastes, premature oxidization, and other knock off problems. Buying from unknown merchants online can become problematic if you are trying to stay titanium pure. Medical grade 2 titanium is what you are looking for the best dapping experience.

Aside from being virtually unbreakable, TI-nails are the best choice of the dab nail game with good reason. Taking only 15-25 seconds to heat up completely these nails take the heat fast, then retain warmth for longer than nails of other materials. This quick fix timing structure allows you more time to enjoy your session. These little stunners are basically indestructible, as they are medical grade metal that you can drop and lightly mistreat with zero worry. There is no feeling worse than breaking or cracking a component of your dab rig right before trying to enjoy it.

Season Your Nail

Seasoning your nail before full use is essential as it causes polymerization, which forms a layer over your nail’s pores. This easy as pie practice is outlined as follows:

Place your nail on the joint rig.

Evenly heat titanium nails until glowing red hot and apply a tiny bit of whatever you are going to be smoking on it. (Ceramic or quartz nails can be deceivingly sizzling, as they will show no difference in color as you heat them.)

Coat the cup of the nail evenly in all areas you want to season.

Allow your nail to cool and repeat 4 times.

Your nail is ready for use!

Maintenance

If you do an ace job of seasoning your nail consistently you probably won’t have to clean it too often. That said, understand that like a car occasional “oil changes” are needed for your Ti-Nail.

Titanium oxidation occurs when your nail has been heated repeatedly and starts to show white flaking. This is simple to remedy. Here are a few cleaning exercises to learn and utilize.

Torch the nail when you have minimal oxidation, causing the white fluff of oxidation to simply burn off.

For more stubborn oxidation, heat your nail then dip it in 90% ISO rub (isopropyl alcohol) or room temperature water with tongs. The uninvited crust layer should slide right off.

A gentle scrub down with sea salt can also get that nail squeaky clean in no time.

If you are still getting unwelcome oxidation residue guests at your dabbing party, your nail might not be titanium grade as it was advertised. Genuine titanium should never rust or corrode. If your TI-nail experiences any of those symptoms, contact the manufacturer to ensure quality.

What is a Dabbing Nail and Dabbing Rig?