What is a Gravity Bong and How Do You Make One?

How to Make a Gravity Bong at Home (DIY) from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

It was around 20 years ago when I was first asked the question of whether I knew what a gravity bong was. At the time, I was new to the world of cannabis, and I was still learning the basics, but that didn’t prevent me from pretending that I knew what a gravity bong was to act all cool in front of my much older friends. When it came to using the gravity bong for the first time later that day, I quickly realized how effective they are, and quickly became a fan.

Luckily, times have changed and first time users have Google to quickly search to find out what a gravity bong is. The purpose of this article is to take a look in detail at the gravity bong, and how to make one from scratch. Basically, a gravity bong (which is sometimes called a “bucket bong”), makes use of a filled bucket of water with a modified 2 liter bottle, as well as a modified liter cap with an accompanying bowl.

How to Make a Gravity Bong?

Right, so what is the process of making your very own gravity bong? First of all, you will need a bucket. We would recommend trying to get hold of a 5-gallon bucket if you can, but a bucket that can comfortably hold a 2 liter bottle (which has been halved) will be more than enough for this. We’ve seen a lot of interesting buckets being used in our time, so you can achieve the same results with any bucket that can hold your bottle.

gravity bong steps

Once you have your bucket, remove the bottom of the bottle. All pretty easy so far right? Things start to get a little more difficult when it comes to setting up the bowl and cap for your gravity bong.

It can be a difficult undertaking to create a hole that is large enough in order for you to insert the metal pipe bowl through. But be careful not to make the hole too big in your cap, as it is important to keep your bong air tight to maximize the performance of your gravity bong.

Sometimes if you make the hole too big, you will have to attempt to create a seal in the bottle cap, but this can be a wasted endeavour, because when the bowl of your gravity bong becomes hot, you will notice that the seal will eventually break. Therefore, we would recommend taking your time with making the hole in your cap. If you can get it right at the first time of asking, your life will be made a lot easier.

My tried and tested technique, which seems to work very well, is to create 2 little cross slits with the aid of a knife. It is important for the slits that you create to be equal to the diameter of the bowl that you will be using. This enables you to push the bowl through the cap successfully, and keep the gravity bong airtight.

After a few uses of your gravity bong, you will more than likely need a new bottle. If you use it regularly, you should expect to replace your bottle about once a week, but this can vary. But, the cap can be used over and over again, so look after it! When it comes to travelling, I just carry my bowl cap with me, and acquire a bottle when I can.

After you have set up the equipment for your gravity bong, it’s time now to try it. To do this, all you need to do is to fill up your bucket with water to around a level where the bucket is approximately two thirds full. Once you have done this, you then simply put your halved two liter bottle into the water. Make sure you twist the cap onto the bottle before you insert the bottle into the water. You will then quickly realize whether you have inserted too much water or too little, so fill or release water to the ideal level before proceeding. You should ensure that there is a 1-2-inch space for air located at the top of the halved two liter bottle. This air space should be present at the same time as the bottle resting at the foot of your bucket.

Once you have done this, you can now take your marijuana and put a small amount into your cap. Take your lighter and light it, and ensure that you carefully pull up on the liter whilst doing so. You will then notice that your liter will become filled with smoke, you can then take off the cap. It is important that you ensure you keep the liter still to ensure you don’t accidentally take the liter bottle out of the water. If you do this, all the smoke will quickly escape your bottle, which is not what we want!

how to make a gravity bong

When you have removed the cap, you can then suck out the smoke at regular intervals. You will notice that by doing this, the liter bottle will do one of two things. It will either cause the liter bottle to sink back into the water, or instead draw water into the liter bottle. We would recommend that you try and time it correctly to ensure you get a great hit. Careful you don’t get water in your mouth in the process, which happened to me when I first used the gravity bong! If you are using a marijuana strain which is high in THC, you will notice that you will get very high pretty quickly. We would recommend you use these gravity bongs if you are on a budget, because we have found that you can get bigger hit with smaller amounts of marijuana, compared to smoking for example.

Do you regularly use gravity bongs? What advice would you give to first time users? Let us know!

Here is a video which shows how to use a gravity bong - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIGATIbpifY