How To Make a Pipe: 5 New Ways You Didn't Know About

If you've ever been motivated to make a DIY mouthpiece, you probably have found a way to do it. Making your pipe is certainly doable when you use common household materials such as aluminum foil, a ballpoint pen to make a pen pipe, or a plastic bottle to make a water bottle bong. Even an apple with the top of it cut off can be useful as an apple pipe.

Stoners are certainly a very resourceful bunch, especially when they're motivated to get high. With the most modest of available household items, they can poke holes with a sharp object and use the bottom of a bottle, the side of the apple, a piece of aluminum foil, or a towel roll. You name it — weed has been smoked through it.

With some elbow grease and forethought, many common materials can be used to make a pipe. They include wood, clay, fruit, and metal. These different materials may have pros and cons for use in smoking — the biggest pro being that they are available to smoke from when you're looking to get high, of course. The cons are... well, you'd be forgiven for forgetting. But let's take a hit — and a closer look.

What Household Items Can Be Used To Make a Pipe?

As discussed above, some of the most common household items used to make pipes include the following.

Aluminum Can

Using an aluminum can as a pipe is a legacy way of smoking, and not recommended. The danger of smoking from a can is that you'll inhale vapors from the aluminum, which is not designed to be heated when cans are made out of it, not to mention paint fumes from the can's label. Spoiler alert: It involves a lot of poking small holes and heating.

Aluminum Foil

Making a pipe out of aluminum foil requires a lot of twisting, flattening, and bending. It can work for one or two hits, but caution is advised. The foil can get very hot and the pipe will only last briefly. It's also not the prettiest pipe to smoke out of.

Bic Pen

Bic and other biro pens provide a handy plastic tube, which is essentially a pipe. If your pen has a metal tip to screw off, so much the better, as you can place it upside down and use it as a bowl. The dangers of heating plastic apply here, too. If you can place the weed in that metal receptacle, then at least you can reduce your health risks a little.

Fruit

Fruit provides a popular, if short-lived, medium for making a pipe. Most people have apples handy in their fridge. Apples are convenient and, some say, able to give a nice hint of flavor to the smoke. You could even argue that apple and fruit-based bongs are eco-friendly.

Ratchet Nut

A ratchet nut is ultimately a small and hollow piece of metal that can be used as a bowl to put weed in, which can then be placed on any kind of bottle, jar, or another receptacle that can hold smoke. The 8mm or 10mm Ratchet nut on a glass pipe or metal tube works like a charm! 

Water Bottle

Water bottles can be turned into pipes with a small piece of aluminum foil as the bowl at the top of the bottle. Using the old poking-holes trick on the side of the bottle allows you to inhale the smoke. It's bad for your health to heat plastic — this has many potential long-term risks, including increased chances of cancer. However, water bottle bongs are certainly convenient and easy to make in a matter of minutes. If you go the water bottle route, at least make sure to try and keep the heat focused on the aluminum foil as best you can. 

Wood

Wood is a classic material used for crafting pipes for tobacco and weed. You can probably picture a grandfather smoking out of his wood pipe. Along with corn cob pipes, wooden pipes are attractive and can feature all kinds of decorations and curlicues. Most people have aluminum foil around the place and can bend it into shape in a pinch — but making a pipe out of wood requires a bit more time, effort, and skill for most. If you happen to have bamboo, though, you're in luck, because it's practically pipe-shaped already, and you can fashion a pretty good steamroller-style pipe by just drilling a well-placed hole or two to use as a bowl.

The Different Types of Smoking Pipes

Just as pipes come in all kinds of materials, they also come in many different varieties. Here's an easy breakdown of different kinds of smoking pipes.

Bongs

Bongs are a kind of water pipe, typically with a glass bowl that's filled with water. Bongs are generally fairly simple — water, neck, carb, bowl, and mouthpiece — but can get incredibly complicated. The gravity bong, for example, uses pressure to force smoke into the user's lungs. Gravity bongs can be expensive, with high-end models selling for up to $600. Bongs, like all water pipes, allow for smokers to get a smoother hit than a joint, blunt, or cigarette.

Bubblers

Bubblers are small and portable types of bongs. Think of water bubbles — hence the name. They're simpler in design and smaller than most bongs, designed to be handheld.

Chillums

Chillum pipes are straight, conical smoking pipes with ancient origins. Chillums can be small or large, with a narrow mouthpiece, opening up a bit like bugles at their end. Chillums are used by Rastafarians and in India by Hindu priests. The chillum is an ancient kind of pipe and examples of them have even been found in pre-Columbian America. Sometimes, a little stone is placed in the chillum as a kind of a filter.

Chillums are often called "one-hitters" and have no carb — just a mouthpiece, neck, and bowl. They're compact, making them easy to smoke from for beginners and experienced weed smokers alike. They're quite quick and easy to clean and come in various kinds of materials, from glass to metal to clay.

Dab Rigs

Dabbing involves smoking dense, powerful concentrated cannabis wax, rosin, shatter, or crumble. There are a lot of ins and outs when it comes to dabbing. The concentrate is heated and the smoke that results from the warming concentrate is inhaled for a pretty strong high. Dabbing provides a strong hit and is best for experienced weed smokers only. Dabbing rigs are the filtration and smoking contraption required to warm up the concentrate, from which one inhales the resulting smoke or vapor. They are a type of water pipe, adapted for use with concentrates.

A dabbing rig can look quite a lot like a bong, with a chamber to heat the concentrate — known as a "nail" in dab-speak — which then vaporizes. An e-rig uses electricity to heat the wax, but typically dabbers just use a butane lighter to warm the bowl. There are many more specialized kinds of dab rigs, which promise various kinds of highs based on how they circulate vapor and get it into the lungs.

Dabbers are a very specific bunch, and there's much discussion about what the right temperature is for heating concentrate. Higher temperatures tend to give it a more intense high — not that everyone finds it enjoyable — and lower temperatures yield a more mellow high. Dab rigs are like bongs but usually hold less water, as vapors from concentrates require less filtering than those that come from regular dried weed.

DART Plus

The DART Plus is like an everyday pipe but greatly improved. It has a winning design and is sleek and compact. It also still packs a punch and provides a really fantastic high. It has room for extra flower, which means you can enjoy your high without worrying about the logistics of weed — which, as stoners know, can get overwhelming. It's perfect for smoking solo but also to pass around with your friends. It's built to last, made with high-grade American machining and anodized metal. 

Anodizing is an electrochemical process that converts a metal surface into a durable and corrosion-resistant finish. Metal with an anodized finish is chemically stable and will not decompose. It is non-toxic and heat-resistant to the melting point of aluminum (1,221 °F). If you're looking for a pipe that's fun and easy to carry, provides a great high, and is also affordable and durable, look no further than the DART Plus. It's got everything you're looking for in a pipe and makes smoking the enjoyable blast of recreation it should be. 

Hand Pipes

Hand pipes are, as the name implies, small pipes that fit in the user's hand. They consist of a bowl for packing dry weed in, a neck, a carb — a hole on the side of the neck that allows for airflow — and a mouthpiece. Hand pipes don't have water so offer a direct and often harsh hit, but they are small and easily portable.

Steamrollers

Steamrollers look like elegant cylinders and are designed to allow users to get big hits without too much trouble. That's because their carbs are at the end of the pipe, not on the side of the bowl, which is traditional. This design allows for users to get more smoke building up in the pipe before taking a hit. They are long, narrow, and easily portable. While they don't allow for water, unlike bongs, the effect of the long chamber is somewhat similar to that of a bong in that it allows the smoke to cool before you inhale it.

Water Pipes

Water pipes are pipes that allow the smoke from lighting dry weed to pass through percolating water before it's inhaled. Common types include the classic Middle Eastern hookah and the bong. Water pipes allow the water to filter smoke, resulting in a smoother hit than with classic joints and cigarettes.

What Is the Best Material To Make a Pipe Out Of?

The best material for making a pipe is ideally a material that is: 

• Durable
• Easy to clean
• Nontoxic
• Nonreactive
• Unlikely to affect the taste or effect of the weed 

That takes anything plastic out of the equation, as it's toxic when heated. Aluminum foil pipes are far from durable and need to be thrown out after a couple of uses. Fruit is handy, but apples can't really be used more than a couple of times. The ideal pipe material will also allow the smoke to cool fully before you inhale it into your lungs. Wood is durable but absorbs the taste of previous smoke sessions. It's also not the easiest to clean! Some metals can also be reactive in ways that can impact your health or simply enjoyment. No one wants weed that has a weird chemical aftertaste.

Making a Pipe at Home

If you're wondering how to make a pipe out of materials you've got at hand, we've got you covered. These may not be the most beautiful or durable pipes, but they are made from materials you've probably got at hand.

How To Make a Bowl Pipe

You can fashion a bowl out of many household objects, bearing in mind that the bowl is simply the part of the smoking apparatus that holds the weed. It should be of a durable material like metal or some kinds of wood that allow for the weed to be heated and create smoke.

You could use a paper towel or toilet paper roll, and cut a hole in it. Use aluminum foil to craft a bowl and put it in the hole you've cut. Prick it with little holes and place your weed in it. Light it up and inhale in one end of the tube while covering the other end with your hand. Once there's enough smoke, inhale.

How To Make a Fruit Pipe

There are a lot of very slightly different techniques out there for making fruit pipes, but most smokers agree that apples are the easiest fruit to use — given their shape, taste, and firmness. You could also use pears if they're not too soft. Zucchinis work if you're looking into the vegetable kingdom. Bananas, in spite of their shape, are probably a bad idea. Anyway, let's assume you have an apple handy.

Using a pencil, screwdriver, or anything sharp, drill down through the top of the apple to its center. Then poke another hole perpendicular to that one. That's it, but you can also punch another hole that meets those two, which you can use as a carb. Dig out the very top a little bit more to use it as your bowl, and voila — an easy apple pipe. You can fancy it up by putting aluminum foil at the top and poking little holes in it to make a more accurately-shaped bowl.

How To Make a Simple Water Pipe

Water pipes add the element of water that cools your smoke down before you inhale it. 

One DIY method for a simple water pipe involves a plastic water bottle as the body of your water pipe and receptacle for water plus a bit of hardware for the pipe and bowl. Use some metallic tubing or the tube from a Bic pen, and poke it through the side of a water bottle. Make a bowl for your weed that sits atop that tubing, whether it's made from an upside-down metal piece from your pen, or a nut that can fit inside your tube, which you can then line with foil that you poke holes in. Fill the bottom of the bottle with water and then inhale the smoke through the opening at the top of the bottle. 

How To Make a Bong

This is a variation on the DIY water pipe. One way to make a DIY bong involves cutting a water bottle in two and placing it inside a larger jug or container, which you fill with water. Construct the mouthpiece and bowl as above. Now, you can enjoy the effects of the gravity bong. After you light the weed and the bottle fills with smoke, push it down into the water, which forces the smoke deeper into your lungs — and you don't even have to spend $600 on it.

How To Make a Clay Pipe

Making a clay pipe takes a bit more forethought, not to mention access to white earthenware clay. There are YouTube tutorials on the subject which are very soothing and entertaining to watch, as well as possibly inspiring — but the tools and skills involved put these well out of the range of most enthusiasts.

One "shortcut" can involve a mold, using a wire in the middle to keep a hole for smoking. You do need a workshop including a vice to make clay pipes this way, which can then be left to dry for a couple of days before being fired in a kiln. However, clay pipes are certainly beautiful and personal if you can get yourself a workshop and materials.

Conclusion: The Best Pipe for Smoking

Ultimately, smoking is a very personal pastime. When you smoke to relieve pain or for purely recreational purposes, how you consume weed can have an impact on how it hits you and the high you get. And of course, the kind of pipe you use to smoke depends on your situation, how much thought you've put into the ritual, how much time you have to prepare. At one end of the spectrum are the aluminum foil, plastic water bottle, soda can, Bic pen, and apple options. Some of these homemade pipes can have health-related concerns even though they're easy to make and don't cost much, or could simply be unpleasant to use — seriously, we don't recommend using the aluminum can option. 

If you have the choice, why would you make your enjoyable weed break anything but pleasurable? You could smoke out of a toilet paper roll, but there are better options that are more sophisticated. Requiring slightly more work to make are the homemade water pipe and bong options. And in the "probably out of reach for most people" category is the homemade clay pipe. 

In the end, each pipe is as different as the person who uses it. Even within the world of bongs, myriad subtypes range in size, materials, portability, and cost. From bubblers to gravity bongs to dabbing rigs, the choices — like strains of weed — are almost infinite.

But one new pipe stands out for its usability, durability, and stylishness — the Dart Plus. It's affordable and unlike all the DIY options, it's reliable and promises a great smoking experience, every time. We're convinced that once you try it, you'll never go back to a regular wood or metal pipe. The Dart Plus is sleek, compact, and supremely portable. Which is good, because after you try it once, you won't want to stop using it — alone or with friends. It's affordable and high quality, made out of anodized aluminum. And it comes in a range of colors, so you can personalize the experience, too.

Unlike so many other options out there, the Dart Plus is self-cleaning, with a unique spring-loaded ash ejection system. It boasts a bigger chamber for more powerful hits, allowing you to pack in more flower and savor the experience, rather than always worrying about adding more weed to the chamber. If you're looking for the best pipe on the market, your search is over. Check out the Dart Plus today!

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