I couldn’t find something to fill a whole post with, so i’m gonna shoot a bunch of mini updates. Here’s recent stuff you might have missed:
Shishabucks announce the mini storm
In a move that will make me eat my words about becoming more budget-friendly, Shishabucks announced their new medium-sized hookah, and boy, am I disappointed.
While you can rest assured that the final product will have a downstem, I’m very iffy about it: it’s gonna cost about $250 including the glass base (which still beats any of the other recent releases that want more than that just for stem+tray) . Also, you’re kinda bound to said base. There is an aluminum ring glued to it and you still get all that sexy spin-ery action, but Jesus Christ why the fuck would you not let me just choose whatever Egermann or artisanal base that fits both modern and tradi setups to put my stem on it. I salute the reduced profile of the stem since now it actually can build a hookah that looks coherent and actually quite sexy, but why stray from a system that both allows more customization _and_ expose us to the risk of the ring getting unstuck from the base? We’re talking about a brand where recently people have had metal parts inside the micro rusting like crazy, so the threat of the glue not lasting a lifetime (or well, until you eventually break the base) is very very real. At least it doesn’t need fucking grommets.
Alpaca announces a triangular bowl and a contest to go with it
After being done with the bowls with chicken pox, Alpaca got down to creating another thing that not many people really need but a bunch of us will want. Behold their triangle bowl:
In a community where people are nowadays boasting about using foil and no HMD, which is like saying “yeah, bruh, chainsaws are okay, but some of us still proudly chop their trees with an axe made of stone” instead of citing it as a preference and nothing more, this bowl will hopefully have provost support, since not even the El Badia Arc will fit this. At least this way it’s easy to know where to place three coals and get an even cook, which is what I assume they’re doing. Let’s not forget Alpaca also has a Square bowl, but they’re still way behind Brazilians:
The good news is that it looks like a Predator bowl with a twist. The bad news is that at least in the left bottom picture, the edges don’t seem straight. Like, lopsided. I hope that’s not the case. Anyways, you can head over to their instagram post and try your hand at naming it and win either the 18K gold plated one, or a simple one. They also ship it internationally, which is cool.
UPDATE: They called it the “Illuminati”. While “Delta” would have been the coolest name I could have seen for it, they went with fucking “Illuminati” bowl.
B2 F-22s have started delivery
Pictures of F-22s have been spotted in the wild, and what’s funny is that the one picture from reddit I saw today was a rose gold F-22 which was not in the initial list of colours. Oh, well, it’s kinda pretty. They also posted square trays up for sale:
While the design is of the tray makes me wish it had narrower corner openings (somebody sneezing from across the room and your ash just going out of the opposite corner is a scenario that comes to mind), what’s cool is that it fits B2 v2s as well. It doesn’t fucking come in blue, black, green, gold, bronze or any other colour of the v2s except for red, but it still fits them. The pictured one is however a very welcome addition, I used to love the splash colorways on yoyos and the fact that B2 tried this is actually awesome. It’s cheaper than a v2 tray, at like $45 for the splashed one, but note it doesn’t have the same aluminum as the F-22 itself. I guess they went for 5052 because it’s easier to bend, which is fine, but the fact that 5052 compared to 6061 is marked as “not heat treatable” (Note: I have no idea what it means in this particular context, your coals may very well have 0 influence on it) and also that it’s not marked with the same corrosion resistance are things I think are notable. In the grand scheme of things, it probably won’t really matter.
The F-22 still doesn’t come with grommets.
UPDATE: Moe from the Hookah Discord was nice to explain a bit about the 5052 aluminum thing. In his words:
Non heat treatable means that the metal can’t be heat treated to strengthen it by the heat treating process they use for 6061 to make it strong enough to machine and support the weight and shit of being handled, pressed and all the other stupid shit people could do. Since the tray just has to survive a drop really it doesn’t have to be as strong and I bet it’s easier to anodize/not fade with the 5052.
Moe
So basically, 5052 is good for the tray.
Hookah Rants 