jhanzair

I saw coplinb's photo and it reminded me of one that the guys took of me when we spent a week at Montargil [attachment=3712:100_4507.jpg] And this is me in my decent posture (it's from my profile album)

I don't know if this helps, but in the whole european union indoor smoking has been banned for some time now. However, if you get a proper ventilation system you can have a permit to allow your establishment to have indoor smoking - they even give you a blue sticker with a cigarette picture

Sanding and refinishing is definitely the way to go. You could get away with light sanding (using high-number sandpaper or a kitchen scrubber) and re-varnishing and polishing locally if the burns are not deep. But getting away with that depends on the type of table and finish. I wouldn't recomend it unless you've got some experience in that kind of thing.

Yeah, the picture would clear up things. Anyway, Havana is a tobacco brand, as far as I'm aware. Never seen Havana brand hookahs, but it's quite possible that they also started selling hookahs.

I think the tobacco in Germany has a lower glycerine content - their laws forbid higher percentages in the tobacco. So you'd probably end up having to add some afterwards. Not that it's a particularly huge problem, just a warning.

Tried some Cleopatra flavors (I did a couple of reviews in the review section I believe) and I didn't find a single decent one. And the price you've mentioned for that Cleopatra is a bit higher than what I pay for Nakhla locally - and Nakhla is waaaaay better than that.

When there are some friends involved, it's pretty easy to tip over a hookah. I've actually gone through the horror of seeing my hookah suspended in the air, hanging from the hose, when two of my friends decided they both *had* to take a puff at precisely the same time.

I think I've read somewhere that the chemicals analysis that were made assumed 650 ºC or something like that - Way out. 200 ºC is standard oven temperatures for a pizza or bread cooking, so this clearly shows that shisha is *cooked*, not burned, as it is assumed by ignorant (or worse, biased) testers. That makes a huge difference as to the amount of harmful chemicals released. Just a side-note: Some posts seem to suggest that shisha is innocuous or something like that - don't kid yourselves. Smoking is bad for your health. End. In my (very unscientific) opinion it is not as harmful as cigarettes, by a long shot, but still.

Evangelion ending -> some of the weirdest stuff ever. Has anybody heard something about the Evangelion remake they were planning to make? When it comes to movies, I liked Ghost in the Shell a lot, don't know if I can't call it my favorite. As to anime series, there are too many to mention :x. No seems to mention older series though, like Rurouni Kenshin, Sailormoon (yeah, I know it's incredibly weird for a guy to like it) and Ranma 1/2 (maybe I'm the only anime nerd around xD).

Actually, it would be curious to smoke through a cigarette filter, just to see if it's yellow and nasty after a while.

I've tried smoking without water, just to see what happened, some time ago. It was *awful*. So the water definitely filters out something. I can test the water in the base for pH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, but i don't think that will be actually useful. Now testing the temperature right below the foil, that would be really useful, if someone has a Thermometer that can take those temperatures, because the temperature of burning is highly influential in the amount of harmful chemicals released.

I don't make my own hookahs because of the money. That hookah has actually cost me something around 15 €, and it's the fourth I've made so... I actually started making these before I found this forum and online shops, so I made my own because the ones I saw at shops seemed *definitely* dangerous (cheap bad quality hookahs).

There is *not* plastic in my hookah! The bowl and downstem are made out of aluminum (real aluminum, not aluminum foil or anything like that, with joints made with red-oxide silicone (it can take 300 ºC without damage, and even if burned silicone is inocuous) which is what is used in hot water and steam reservoirs sealing - so there is no health risk at all. The cover is made out of cork, again covered with a thin layer of red-oxide silicone. Both are toxic-free and the temperature in the vase cover area is actually really low, I'd guess around 50-60 ºC tops, so no burning risk there. The vase is normal glass, so no health risk there either. I know it does not look that good - I've been focusing on functionality on my hookahs other than beauty until now, so that might make you think it's like improvised or something, but no. You can dismantle it, put it in the dishwasher (theoretically, I've never actually done that, I clean it myself ) and it can take a *lot* of abuse - in fact it has already taken a lot of abuse, I've made it some 3 or 4 months ago. For the next one I will focus on beauty instead

Yes, it works. My hookah is like that. Although the holes are a bit too big and too few. The next one I make will have way more and smaller holes, but I'm still looking for a pretty vase before starting on it. Here is a pic: [attachment=3174:DSC05398.jpg]

If you're not really sure about it, I'd say buy some Nakhla. Really hard to get it wrong, plenty of flavors and if you don't like it it's no biggie - it's quite cheap.