What are smoke screens?
Ever been taking a hit from your hand pipe or a joint and had molten ash fly into your mouth and down your lungs? Yeah, that shit sucks. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Enter screens. What are smoke screens, you may be asking. Smoke screens are either brass, stainless steel, aluminum, or glass that holds ash in place. Preventing ash from going into your mouth as you take a hit. They also help keep your pipe cleaner and less ash build up.
You could even benefit from using screens in your water pipe. While using water in your smoking session will cool your smoke before it reaches your lungs, often little bits of ash can make its way into the water. You could be reducing herb waste by simply using a screen in your bowl.
Metal Smoke Screens
The most common type of pipe screen are small metal mesh circles that can be bent to conform to the inside of your hand pipe bowl. Typically made of brass, aluminum, or stainless steel they must be replaced periodically since they become coated with the residue and can form holes.
Glass Smoke Screens
Another alternative are glass screens. They’re easy to use, you just drop one in a bowl. They don’t need to be replaced, unlike metal screens, but you do need to clean them regularly and their small size means that they can be easy to lose. Just like the metal screens, residue can build up, but because they’re made of glass you can use glass cleaner (like Mister Eeze) to get them back to new. Be careful that you don’t break the glass when removing. Built up resin can sometimes make these small warriors hard to see and even harder to remove.
There are two types of glass screens. Daisy screens and honeycomb screens. Daisy screens look like tiny little flowers. Put the “stem” into the hole of your bowl and the “petals” will hold it in place while preventing herbs from falling through.
Honeycomb screens have a multi hole design that helps your herb burn more evenly. The design is similar to the honeycomb disc percolators you might see inside big water pipes.
Cheap for anyone’s budget, glass smoke screens are a way to take your smoke up a notch. Never get caught with ash in your mouth again!