Bangers 101: A Quick Guide to the Wide World of Dab Tech

Bangers 101

Dabbing is still new by almost any standard, and yet the techniques and technology surrounding cannabis extract vaporization has already seen a few major sea changes, and will likely undergo more evolution as dabbing works itself into the mainstream.

Whether you’re new to vaporization, or you’re an old vapor-Ent, there is likely to be a few new developments and products on the market that you may be unaware of. We’re here to pull back the curtain, and give you the scoop!

Banger or Nail? Titanium or quartz? What size is right for me?

You might have heard both of these terms before, and today they are often used interchangeably. ‘Nail’ is a holdover term from the early days of dab tech. Early rigs would use a titanium metal nail, housed inside a dome. The nail would be heated with a torch, and then the extracts would be placed directly on the head of the hot nail, and the dome would contain the vapor until it was inhaled.

Eventually titanium was mostly replaced by quartz, a very thermally stable form of glass. Quartz doesn’t expand nearly as much as borosilicate glass(the kind most pipes and bongs, and even kitchen glassware, is made of) which is important when dabbing because of the intense heating and cooling cycles the nails were subjected to. Once quartz became the dominant material in the market, bucket bangers grew in popularity.

Basic quartz bangers consist of a bucket, which is has an airway that attaches to your bong or rig. The bucket is heated, and then the concentrates are dropped in, or ‘banged’ around the inside of the bucket, hence the name.

Most of these bangers are available in a variety of sizes too, so it is important to know what your bong or rig can accept. The majority of glassware today is built on 14mm joints, either male or female, which means that 14mm bangers will be the most common. However, smaller 10mm bangers exist, and are especially common on ‘mini rigs’ or smaller portable water pipes. 18mm bangers also exist, often letting users do dabs in their larger bongs. It should be noted that while most of the time your bong or dab rig will have a female joint, and the banger will have a male joint to connect with it, this is not the only configuration you will encounter. It is also important to identify if you need a banger that is designed for 90º of 45º joints, so that the banger sits at the proper angle on your pipe.

Today, there are lots of types of bangers available, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Finding the right banger for you can take a little trial and error. Hopefully we can shed a little light on your decision by detailing the most common types of quartz banger available on the market.

Bucket Bangers

The simplest, and earliest bangers are little more than quartz buckets. Sometimes they will have a flat top, while other times the top will have a slanted cut to it. These are known as ‘flat top’ and ‘slant’ bangers respectively. Slant bangers are mostly used for high temperature dabbing, while flat top bangers are intended to be used in conjunction with a carb cap, which controls the flow of air, and even reduces the vaporization temperature by creating negative pressure inside the bucket.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the bucket banger though! This is by far the most common banger type, and for good reason. There are other variations of bucket bangers that keep the tried and true construction, but opt for more exotic materials. Opaque quartz bottoms offer faster thermal exchange than clear quartz, so they heat up faster and in turn heat your concentrate faster. There are also thermochromic bangers, with crystals encased in the banger that change color to indicate how hot they are. A great tool for beginner dabbers that are still getting the feel for how to achieve a consistent temperature!

Reactor Bangers

Reactor Bangers feature a solid pillar of quartz in the middle of the bucket. This reactor acts as a heat repository, so as the quartz banger bottom cools, the reactor can feed heat into the bucket. This makes for a more controlled  temperature while dabbing, and fewer reheat cycles will be needed. Often, you'll see other tech, like opaque quartz or thermochromic crystals in reactor style bangers.

Thermal Bangers

Thermal Bangers are also designed to hold an even temperature, but instead of a solid thermal mass, they use a jacketing technique. Thermal bangers feature a bucket inside an outer quartz jacket. Once heated, you drop the concentrate into the bucket, and the thermal jacket protects the bucket from the ambient air, allowing the bucket to stay hotter longer.

Round Bottom Bangers

Round Bottom bangers have a cupped dish at the bottom of the bucket, and are often favored for doing cold start dabs. In this method, the user adds the concentrates into the cold bucket, and then heats the banger until the concentrate melts and begins to vaporize. The round bottom ensures the dab will pool together, and won’t begin evaporating until the temperature is just right.

Terp Slurpers

Terp Slurper Bangers are among the most complex type of bangers available today, and are rapidly gaining traction. A quartz Terp Slurper doesn’t use a bucket in the same way most of the other bangers we’ve covered so far do. Terp Slurpers tend to be much larger pieces, with a smaller bucket at the top, and a tall quartz tube that runs down into a dish. This dish has small slits that let air pass through the walls of the banger. Once this dish and tube is heated, dabs are placed directly into the outside dish, or dropped through the top and down the tube to the inside of the dish.

In place of carb caps, this style of banger uses a set of marbles. Different configurations of marbled exist for different variations of terp slurpers, but the most common type uses a large marble to seal the top of the banger, a medium marble to seal the top of the banger’s column, and a small terp pearl which spins inside the column, thoroughly agitating and blending your concentrate. Terp Slurpers are designed for lower temperature dabs, and are more difficult to clean after use, making them a favorite among more experience dab users who don’t mind spending the extra time and money to keep a terp slurper running at top efficiency.

There are definitely other types of bangers out there, with new innovations coming out every day!  If you’re still using the banger that came with your rig, or even if you have a few favorite heady bangers on display, there is something new for everyone to try out, as dabs, and bangers, continue to grow in popularity and innovation.