This is my breakdown if everything I know about bongs:
We are all familiar with the standard shape of the bong:
We'll start where the herb starts: the bowl.
bowls come in basic
and fancy
a bowl is a bowl, and it holds the weed for you to burn.
The bowl connects to the downstem on a regular bong, but we'll cover everything here. On expensive glass the next step after the bowl should be an ashcatcher
An ashcatcher is essentially a mini bong before your bong. Its purpose is to catch the largest pieces of ash and to help keep your expensive glass clean. It does smooth out the hit somewhat, but not to a great extent.
that ashcatcher has a removable downstem between it and the bowl.
that ashcatcher is built into the bowl.
The next step from there is the downstem.
On nice glass, the downstem should be diffused, which means that instead of one large hole at the end there are smaller holes
that downstem has slits. The reason for the smaller holes is that if the smoke is filtering through smaller bubbles, more pieces of ash will be caught, since there is less room for them to hide from the water.
The next step is further filtration of the smoke, through percolators. Percolators are simply another level of water filtration. Usually there are three downstems that go into a water chamber, though I have seen as many as 10 stems on one level.
This is a diffused percolator.
some bongs have percs stacked on top of each other.
This RooR has 2 percs:
The final step is to cool the smoke. Many modern bongs comes with indents in the sides of the main body, these are known as icecatchers, as they can be used to hold ice in place. The smoke will pass over the ice and become cooled, making for an easier pull. The above RooR has an icecatcher in use.
Illadelph has a unique method of cooling smoke, through a glycerin coil that is put in the freezer (glycerin will not freeze) and the smoke passes through a glass tube that in suspended in the glycerin.
Part 2: Bong Accessories
Lighter:
The universal agreement is that bics are the cleanest burning and cleanest tasting lighters for use smoking. You can never go wrong with a bic.
What's bad: Torch lighters and wicked lighters (zippos) why? A torch will demolish your herb, and the added heat is of no value whatsoever. Zippos taste like shit due to the inefficiency of their burn and their fuel.
^^Torches are bad, mmmkay?
Some people use alternate methods of igniting their herb, to avoid any burning contaminants, illadelph supplies heat wands (glass rods) that are first heated to red hot then touched to the herb to ignite it. Other people use soldering irons to the same effect. heat guns are also used, though uncommon.
an illadelph heat wand.
Screens: screens help keep your glass clean and stop you from pulling through unburnt herb. Screens come in glass and metal. I only use glass screens, I prefer the flower shaped ones. Metal screens are slightly more effective, but some have said that using metal can lead to health issues in the future. The screen goes in the bowl, and blocks the hole in such a manner as to make many smaller holes.
a metal screen
different shapes of glass screens
if there's something I forgot, let me know and I'll add it!