If you dab, odds are you have at least a couple good nails. And they’re probably pretty hard to clean. With a torch, hash oil and soot get burned onto the nail and won’t easily come off.
Titanium nails are a favorite of many oil fans. They’re durable, they get super hot, and they make dabbing easier. But how to clean a titanium nail?
There are several ways to clean a titanium nail, just like there are multiple ways to clean glass and other paraphernalia. Which you use depends on experience, time, and supplies. Here are a few approaches to cleaning a titanium nail.
1. Clean your titanium nail using the Torch Method
First, the torch method. This is the simplest, the most reliable, and probably the safest technique – at least for your titanium nail.
Here’s how simple the torch method is: Light your torch, heat your nail. That’s it. No chemicals, no salt, no shaking or scrubbing. Just a blue flame and 10 to 20 seconds.
As you heat the nail, any oil residue should quickly burn off and evaporate. Depending on how anal retentive you are about the cleanliness of your titanium nail, you could also use this method between dabs to keep the nail clean.
The chief benefit of the torch method is that it’s easy, quick, and cheap. And there are no household chemicals involved, so there’s little risk of fire or injury. Indeed, this seems to be the method of choice for most dabbers.
2. Clean your titanium nail using the Water-Dipping Method
But there are other ways to clean a titanium nail. The so-called “water dipping” method is also popular, if slightly more complicated. The idea is to heat your titanium nail just as you would for a dab, then use tongs to remove it and place it in a container of room temperature water.
This approach is said to be good at removing the white oxidation that coats the top of the titanium nail. It also has the benefit of being free and relatively simple. Since it involves both heat and water, it may provide somewhat better cleaning than the torch method.
3. Clean you titanium nail using the ISO Method
The final approach to how to clean a titanium nail is called the ISO method. It involves isopropyl alcohol, aka rubbing alcohol, and sometimes salt. The alcohol costs a couple bucks, so it’s not quite as free as the other methods, but it’s pretty close. It’s also fairly easy.
There are two ways to clean your titanium nail with ISO alcohol. First, you could simply fill a small container with alcohol, pour in a little salt, and leave the nail to sit in it for five to 10 minutes. Vigorous shaking can loosen some of the residue.
Or you could dip a rag or paper towel in alcohol and then use that to scrub your titanium nail clean. This works about as well, though you may have to scrub pretty hard. In either case, try to use 91 percent ISO rather than 70 percent. Purer alcohol means a better clean.
If you choose to use ISO to clean your titanium nail, make sure you season the nail before dabbing. This involves heating the nail three to five times and dropping small dabs on it each time until the oil coats the nail, giving it a “seasoning.” This also makes it less likely you’ll unwitting inhale alcohol – and you definitely want to avoid that.
