Types of cuts - everything that connects.

The confusion among amateur smokers regarding the different bong-characteristics is partly legion and unfortunately often contributes to mispurchases. Therefore on these pages and the following lines a short information concerning the different types of cuts.

Normal cut

The term "polish" is used to describe the connection points on glass bongs. In most cases this concerns the use of chillum in the bong and the connector of heads on chillum or diffuser. These must always be selected with the same cut size (see below) in order to ensure accuracy of fit. Unfortunately, these cuts are often rather fragile and can break easily. In the worst case such damages can make even the whole pipe unusable. That is why some manufacturers have come up with something:

Hammer cut

The hammer cut prevents the problem of the normally rather thin cut attachments, which can sometimes jump with careless movements and thus endanger the function of Chillum - or even worse: the bong itself. With the hammer cut the glass thickens around the connector and forgives rough treatment. However: everything has its limits - there is no 100% break resistance with glass bongs.

Armoured ground joint

A bit further is the armour polish: the thickening of the joint is a bit more luxurious than the hammer polish. For their armour finish, G-Spot Bongs are known.

Insidecut

The Insidecut follows a similar approach, but uses the glass material of the pipe itself. The glass attachment for chillum or diffuser is located directly on the pipe body and is not pulled out of it. This makes the pipe itself less susceptible to lateral tensile loads and the associated damage. Fractures occur when the chillum itself is broken.

Joint sizes

A number of different standards have been established with regard to the necessary cut sizes. Bongs and accessories are usually available with the following cut diameters:

• 12, 5mm
• 14.5mm
• 18, 8mm
• 29, 2mm

The most common are the two middle sizes. 12.5mm are still sometimes found in very small glass water pipes, 29.2mm is mostly reserved for cars with oversizes.

Adapter

If, for example, you still want to combine old bongreste (head, chill, diffusor, etc.) with a new acquisition, but this fails due to the different grinding sizes, you can in most cases make do with suitable adapters. However, this is usually reduced or enlarged to the nearest size - e.g. from 14.5mm to 18.8mm or vice versa. Adapters for 14.5 to 29.2 or also from 12.5 to 18.8 are unfortunately very rare and hard to get.