what were bongs like way back when?

[2 Legal Co]

Buying a quality meerschaum pipe was a goal for me as a teen. The longer you owned/used them the more beautiful they became.

I keep thinking I should replace it. But then I look at the size of the bowel, and have to ask myself WHY? Most of what I smoke is one or maybe two hits, and since I Hate relighting a stale bowel...... well maybe not.

Hmmm.... although I do have some TGA strains that I can hit three times and not fall down. LMFAO

 

[Buddle]

my first bong was a green ceramic Buddha. Then came US Bong ,. My best friend had smaller red acrylic, that folded closed so you could wear it around your neck.Came with a leathert strap and everything..lol..
I had an Apache way back too. That was also acrylic(black) was shaped like a V and had a wooden handle to hold while using Most expensive bong I saw in the 70's was a 3 stage US Bong..red with white ceramic tubes.one of the tubes got broken pretty early on..that bong was like 200. a friend bought it..It may have been early 80's..forget.
My favorite party toy was the Power Hitter though. a plastic bottle that held a joint inside it for those afraid to give a power hit the all natural way

 

[sodalitas]

Better late than never. 51 yrs old (born 1962) started smoking about 1976, I went to bongs only pretty quick.
Graffix 3' black leather strip covering a soup can filled with colored aquarium rock and epoxy.
Also, a 1' green ceramic bong with a built in dish & match/lighter holder.
(Didn't change the water too often back then, breaking the bong in a hallway left a 'lasting impression' to the nose, lol)

 

[Payaso]

Nice thread!

Way back machine time... to the islands where I grew up.

A friend came back from a tour of duty in Vietnam (1971) and told tales about smoking thai stick through a so-called 'bong.'

We got some Columbian Gold, which was all we could get in the Caribbean islands back then (except for maybe some Panama Red once in a while)... and our friend helped us sort out a bong.

We visited a local bamboo grove, and sawed our own tree down and took it home in sections atop a VW Bug.

Next was to cut it in sections, as it grows that way, with sealed empty spaces between each joint in the tree... cut right below each joint, leaving a nice foot or more long tube with a sealed bottom. Drilled a hole into the side a few inches from the bottom, at an angle. Then used a thin smaller section from the top to make a downdraft into the chamber...and glued it in place.

Next was a trip to the rocks at the end of the beach below my house and we collected whelks and barnacles and a conch or two... made chowder with the meat, and selected the most perfect of the barnacle shells to become bowls, which were glued on to the bamboo downdraft.

Note: Barnacle shells have a perfectly sized hole for the bowl. And stand up to the heat!

A bit of curing and drying out left the bong nicely dried and ready for use... a couple inches of water in the bottom, some weed in the bowl, and a match...it was an experience I will never forget, and something that convinced me to smoke from a water pipe from then on...

Happy Bonging to All!

 

[Buddle]

I remember one of my bongs had a six shooter or whatever it was..A round piece with six one hit bowls in it, right?

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

The first bong I saw was maybe 68 or 69 at a Vietnam vets house, made from bamboo.
I made one soon after.
The very first bongs were made in the Far East or China more then 10,000 years ago. They were also square, round bongs made from Bamboo were first made thousands of years after the first square bong made by Zhang Wei, the very first person to make and smoke Cannabis out of a bong, square of course. The first bong made and sold in America was the "Square Bong" made by the American Square Bong company in 1843, out of a square hickory stick, they never did come out with a round bong.
I prefer square bongs as the smoke out of them gets you twice as high as a round bong, something about the aerodynamics of the square bong just can't be beat.
Anyone else prefer a square bong?
-SamS

 

[2 Legal Co]

The first bong I saw was maybe 68 or 69 at a Vietnam vets house, made from bamboo.
I made one soon after.
The very first bongs were made in the Far East or China more then 10,000 years ago. They were also square, round bongs made from Bamboo were first made thousands of years after the first square bong made by Zhang Wei, the very first person to make and smoke Cannabis out of a bong, square of course. The first bong made and sold in America was the "Square Bong" made by the American Square Bong company in 1843, out of a square hickory stick, they never did come out with a round bong.
I prefer square bongs as the smoke out of them gets you twice as high as a round bong, something about the aerodynamics of the square bong just can't be beat.
Anyone else prefer a square bong?
-SamS

Sam, I never had a square one. Can you give me some dimensions please? Materials, you've seen? Only ones I've seen that were close to square, were ceramic. ...?

I need to make one to test , oh yes... another experiment.

Or maybe I just need to look closer at the pipe shop. I've been using glass lately, so haven't even browsed the ceramics displays.

 

[Payaso]

Thanks for the tip Sam! I never heard of a square before, but I now see they are available in glass...but I haven't seen one online with a square all the way up to the mouthpiece.

 

[asa42]

this thread DEFINATELY brought back memories. my pot days didn't start til 1990ish so i dont go back as far as some here, but lookin thru my nov 1976 issue of high times and there are ads for nearly type described thruout this thread...including ones made from horns. my 1st was a cheap simple no name (at least not a memorable one) plastic one. somewhere along the way i got a 4ft jesterhead graffix. but what i really remember, since i built it, was a huge 8chamber one i made out of clear pvc. the base alone was 17'' square. i use to put food color in it, like blue on one side and yellow on the other and as the water settled into all the chambers some would have different shades of green...probably wasn't the smartest, but hey it looked neat, lol!

 

[The_Leader]

5 gal bucket and a lake. best gravity bong ever.....

 

[Granger2]

In my circle the favorite was the Toker II. All glass. Round bulb [flat bottom] with hole in front with a 2 holed rubber stopper [carberator], with a mouth tube coming out the back at a 45 degree angle, flaired. Glass stem with flair/bowl coming out perpendicular/vertical. Worked great, but everyone always broke them. No longer available. I know one guy who had 2 of them on a tray, and broke them both on the way to the sink. But, ahhhh, a Toker II and a bag of Columbian. -granger

 

[GeorgeWBush]

way back when :

way back when :

we rolled with this homies,

 

[shithawk420]

Bwahaha!! That pic is epic! I remember that pic from years ago!

 

[shithawk420]

No offense Sam but that last statement you made is rediculus. getting twice as high as a round bong cuase its square?any real glass head will till you that's false.and how do you make bamboo square?don't be silly

 

[HazeNKush]

man, i know im not as old, but i made my first bong EVER in April of 2001. Took a Poland springs water bottle, a Tv antenna that i snapped off and pinched to make it so you could pack a nice 1-2 hitter, stuck it in the water bottle, used moms clear nail polish to seal it up and then poked a hole out for a carb

on 4/20/01 me and my friend christened that thing by skipping 3 afternoon classes and passing the fuck out and waking up some 3-4hrs later and continuing our first 4/20 together seperetly. crazy shit lol

I also had a few graffix bongs, one blue 2fter and a purple double chambered 3fter that were acrylic

I had 2 jerome bakers at one point or another, and also 2-3 zongs.

I was lucky to have started smoking in early 2000s when i could order bongs off the net and my mom was cool with it as long as i payed for it of course lol. Needless to say in highschool, my friends knew where to go afterschool/during lunch lol

Jesus H christ...where did the time go? lol

 

[sodalitas]

I remembered a couple more name brands I owned in the late 70's/early 80's.
I got a Toke Right Dream Machine for my 18th bday from a (then) gf.
I also bought a GLASS tube 'Graphics' company in Milwaukee WI. (Same company, just the correct spelling back then. I may have even taken the trip up there from Chicago to buy it straight from them back then... Although I doubt it, our local head, I mean 'TOBACCO' shop was always very well stocked, which was an awesome thing once I discovered glass) (and how quickly it broke, lol)

 

[OG_BnThrDnThtHi]

Anyone remember the clear acrylic Tokemasters with a contoured top to fit your mouth? the stem was red and it was the first one to ever hit that had the carburetor just below the bowl attached to the stem. There was a blue acrylic base to sit it in. there was no box or packaging the instructions were just down in the tube. these were the Cadillac of bone was back then 1988 I seem to remember two footer was about $65-70 dollars. I scoured the net and I only found one picture...not a great image it all but I tell you what these things were tight and smooth. would like to get my hands on one again but I guess I'll just have to settle for my vintage JB.....

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

calcium carbonate and minerals is what sea shells are made of, If you heat and smoke from calcium carbonate when it gets hot it releases things you do not want to breath due to Calcium Carbonate inhalation into your lungs.
Calcium carbonate, CaCO3, is one of the most common compounds on Earth, making up about 7% of Earth's crust. It occurs in a wide variety of mineral forms, including limestone, marble, travertine, and chalk. Calcium carbonate also occurs combined with magnesium as the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO3)2. Stalactites and stalagmites in caves are made of calcium carbonate. A variety of animal products are also made primarily of calcium carbonate, notably coral, sea shells, egg shells, and pearls.

I stopped using seashells and other soft stone pipes when I heard this 40 years ago. I was using a limestone or marble chillum I got in India and noticed the smoke seemed to coat my mouth. It was of course a square chillum, because that gets you higher, LOL.

-SamS

Nice thread!

Way back machine time... to the islands where I grew up.

A friend came back from a tour of duty in Vietnam (1971) and told tales about smoking thai stick through a so-called 'bong.'

We got some Columbian Gold, which was all we could get in the Caribbean islands back then (except for maybe some Panama Red once in a while)... and our friend helped us sort out a bong.

We visited a local bamboo grove, and sawed our own tree down and took it home in sections atop a VW Bug.

Next was to cut it in sections, as it grows that way, with sealed empty spaces between each joint in the tree... cut right below each joint, leaving a nice foot or more long tube with a sealed bottom. Drilled a hole into the side a few inches from the bottom, at an angle. Then used a thin smaller section from the top to make a downdraft into the chamber...and glued it in place.

Next was a trip to the rocks at the end of the beach below my house and we collected whelks and barnacles and a conch or two... made chowder with the meat, and selected the most perfect of the barnacle shells to become bowls, which were glued on to the bamboo downdraft.

Note: Barnacle shells have a perfectly sized hole for the bowl. And stand up to the heat!

A bit of curing and drying out left the bong nicely dried and ready for use... a couple inches of water in the bottom, some weed in the bowl, and a match...it was an experience I will never forget, and something that convinced me to smoke from a water pipe from then on...

Happy Bonging to All!

 

[Dr. Fleye]

I remember that my first "Bong" was homemade. It was back in the early seventy's. You could by a set of glass canisters that were used to hold spaghetti. They came with a cork seat for the top. We filled the glass container halfway with water. We would cut a hole in the cork and place glass tube through it. On top of the tube we would fashion a bowl from tin foil. Next we placed a rubber tube through a second hole and sucked hard and saw stars

 

[gdbud]

In the 70's I would buy the stem and bowl and make my own bongs. My favorite bong was made out of a broken fiberglass pole vaulting pole, I also used bamboo and my most desecrate bong was made out of a small fire extinguisher. I had this one mounted in the car and the cops never found it. They would look at it and make comments about how safe it was to have a fire extinguisher in the car.