DIY Dry Sifter Box

Here's a fairly easy way to make a nice little sifting box. You just get a 3300 ml (or whatever size you prefer) Tritan food storage container and cut out the middle of the lid with some snippers. It cracks easily so you have to go slowly. I smoothed off the edges of the cut with a lighter. The rubber seal holds the screen securely when the flaps are locked down. It was tight enough for my liking.It's not in perfectly flat in this image, I just did it quickly but it's possible to get it quite flat.

The screen is just a piece of 112 micron nylon 6/6 mesh. I sealed the edges of the mesh with a lighter too. I also got a sheet of 25 mic for filtering liquids or pressing rosin. No head shops carry mesh screens where I live so I had to order some directly from a supplier. I decided to go with nylon instead of polyester.

Tritan is a form of polyester too, btw. So the container is as safe to use as polyester screens. The one I got has rounded inside edges and corners, making it easy to gather powder with a card. I tested it with some trim that I had leached with solvent and had dried back out. Worked very well. Leached weed is easy to sift because there's no goo. I can use the powder to mix rosin with to make hash or something.

Good idea!

Here are some more complicated ways to DIY dry sieve material.

https://skunkpharmresearch.com/diy-sieving-frames/

https://skunkpharmresearch.com/grinng-reaper/

Fadedawg said:

Good idea!

Here are some more complicated ways to DIY dry sieve material.

https://skunkpharmresearch.com/diy-sieving-frames/

https://skunkpharmresearch.com/grinng-reaper/

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Thanks. Those projects are good for people with a little workshop and spare stuff around. I just happened to have a couple of those Tritan containers around and it looked just about right. Must admit though that the cutting is difficult. This particular DIY is for people who don't mind some tricky snipping work. Actually there's probably other types of containers that are softer material, like the Rubbermaid type.

These Tritan ones do have a very nice seal on them though, which holds the screen firmly all around. It's just tough slogging with the snippers and cracking can occur, which causes more aggravation. If you succeed though, you have a very nice little sifter. A good feature of this kind over the frame kind is that if the screen becomes a little loose after some use you can just readjust it easily. It's also convenient for screen removal for washing. The only bad thing is that the screen gets pinched where the lid flaps clip it to the container. I might have to put a layer of something else in there to protect the screen. Actually this probably wasn't that great an idea after all. The container part is okay but maybe I'll just use big elastics to hold the screen on.

I found that I could simply put weed on the mesh sheet and pull the corners and sides up to enclose it and then just shake it over the container. For 100 g or less it works fine. You pretty much need the weed to be banging around to dislodge the trichs, like with bubble bags. Just that in this case it's air instead of water. In fact if you have bubble bags already you could just use them without the water. Then after you harvested the dry sift you could add the water and see if you can get some more that way.

I've got an idea. What if you glued two or three clip lid containers to each other. You cut the top and bottom out of the inner ones. You could use one mesh size or two. One larger and or one finer.

That way you can obtain two different purity trichomes.

Nugachino said:

I've got an idea. What if you glued two or three clip lid containers to each other. You cut the top and bottom out of the inner ones. You could use one mesh size or two. One larger and or one finer.

That way you can obtain two different purity trichomes.

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Yeah I guess you could do that if you were just shaking the sifter box around. Probably simpler just to use a single box and change screens though. BTW, it works better if you extract the resin with a solvent, then dry out the used material and sift THAT instead of the gooey normal buds. You can sift leached buds really easily, at room temperature, no clogging. Then you just mix the resin with the powder you sifted.

You get nice putty black hash that way, or gold hash if you started with a gold colored extract. Why waste all those leached trichs? Granted it's mostly trich stalks, since the heads seem to dissolve away, but trichs nonetheless. If you're making BHO anyway, may as well sift those trichs and make it into a more convenient product to smoke, hash. At least you could make SOME of the BHO into hash that way. Probably not enough trichs to convert it all. Only get about 10% trichs, meaning enough to make about 15% hash, 2 parts powder to 1 part BHO. Actually I never tried making hash from BHO, since I don't make BHO. It works with alcohol or acetone extracts though. BHO hash might get crumbly after a few days.

I sift my weed and hot press the kief from it.
I've only tried extracts twice. Friend gave me some shatter. And I made a small batch of BHO with a solid glass tube and half an ounce of decent herb. Got me cooked as a chook.

Nugachino said:

I sift my weed and hot press the kief from it.
I've only tried extracts twice. Friend gave me some shatter. And I made a small batch of BHO with a solid glass tube and half an ounce of decent herb. Got me cooked as a chook.

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I'd like to make some BHO but just seems troublesome. At some point I probably will.

It's not hard man. I'd never made it before. I just watched a bunch of vids how to do it. Then went and found what I needed to make some sweet d9 honey

I see. That might work out well if you had a walk-in freezer or did it outside in winter but how long can you work with it at room temperature before it gets gooey? Also, you can winterize extracts but with plain sifted you still have all those trich head membranes which are presumably some kind of wax. With winterized extracts and leached trichs you could make waxless hash, meaning premium and better than all other hashes on the market.

Are you suggesting qwiso?

If you freeze your material before you sift, the trichs fall off like rain. Don't need chemicals!!

Nugachino said:

Are you suggesting qwiso?

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More like quacetone. It makes a better product, dries faster and is less stinky. I tried iso last time and it was inferior. Acetone or MEK are the preferred Cannabis resin solvents.

I don't really know. I kind of did mine in a couple hits. That's why I was f#cked up. Shit had me gone.

Nugachino said:

I don't really know. I kind of did mine in a couple hits. That's why I was f#cked up. Shit had me gone.

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Oh yeah, it'll get ya real gone, no doubt. I haven't tried making quMEK yet, but should be nearly identical to quacetone, which is really good for making hash. It has the perfect hash smell and consistency. You can't get that with butane. A lot less green than quiso too. It seems to dissolve less other stuff than iso does. It just gets the hash oil part.

Ok. So basically. You do it like you would qwiso. But with acetone instead?

It's a good idea but a lot of work. I just used some scrap 1x2"'s to make a frame and screwed the screen between the 1x2's, been using it for 2 years, same screen/frame. I just put a piece of parchment paper under it and sift away. Similar to the skunkpharm sift screens but much simpler, took like 20 minutes to screw it together.

Nugachino said:

Ok. So basically. You do it like you would qwiso. But with acetone instead?

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Yes, exactly the same. It's just a better solvent. You do have to avoid using any plastic utensils though, because acetone dissolves many plastics. It would also be good to distill it before use, if bought at a hardware store. You could use a small water distiller, as long as it's all stainless steel, no plastic. I doubt if it's more dirty than iso anyway but best to be safe. I use it straight from the can myself. Could be some leaching of solder from the can, who knows. I figure there's a lot more toxins in buds than in acetone anyway. I would like to get a still at some point though. Kind of costly where I live. Might order one sometime from amazon though.

And where do you get your screens from?

I never found this when I searched extracts. Might be new.