How To: Rebuilding ProTank heads with Cotton!

Rebuilding your protanks with cotton is something many rave about. Better flavour, cheaper running costs, more vapour, are all good reasons for using it. Personally I find all of these to be tried and true. I can vouch for every one, and it is why I exclusively now use cotton in all of my protanks, normal size and minis!

Here’s how I recoil and wick my protank heads.

1. Remove head from protank.
   
2. Remove chimney from head. Because it is a press in fit,  this can be done by either wiggling it until it comes away from the base, or using a pair of needle  nose pliers to loosen.
   
3. Turn the head upside down, and using your needle nose pliers again, gently remove the positive post from the rubber/silicone grommet.
   
4. Now that the positive post is gone, you can now remove the rubber/silicone grommet. This can be a little tricky as it’s wedged in there pretty good. Usually I will use my pliers, get a good grip and just pull. But if you have strong fingers you should be able to do it without any tools.
   
5. Remove the existing flavour wicks, coil and main with with a pair of tweezers, the legs of the coil should come out very easily now.
   
6. Give the base a little bit of a clean to remove any left over juice or gunk.
7. Now usually I will use a contact coil, and seem to average a 1.8ohm resistance using 30 gauge kanthal at 7 wraps around a small electrical screwdriver. So do your wraps.
   
8. A contact coil wouldnt be a contact coil if the wraps weren’t touching so, we torch the coil, whilst holding the legs in pliers, until the coil is red hot, and quickly squeeze the coils together with a set of tweezers. While your there (after its cooled a little) straighten the legs out a little also.
   
9. Put your screwdriver back through the coil and place the screwdriver into the slots in the base of the head. This will place the coil in the perfect spot.
   
10. While you’re holding it there with one hand, with the other, thread the rubber/silicone grommet over one of the legs and press it home into the opening of the head. Fold the leg up a little to get it away.
    
11. Still holding the screwdriver, insert the positive post into the rubber/silicone grommet. Once this is done you can clip the overhang of the legs off with a set of  clippers.
    
12. At this point, I like to put the head into a protank base, and screw the base onto an ohm tester, just to make sure of the resistance and to make sure I dont have any shorts. After testing resistance you could also put it onto an ego battery and give it a few blasts to make sure the coil is lighting up nicely.
    
13. The final step now is to wick the coil with cotton. Take a little cotton from whatever source you are using. I use organic cotton. You don’t need a lot just enough to fill the coil without forcing it through.
    
14. Twist the cotton a little and feed it through. If the coil wants to move around while you are trying to pull the cotton through, you are using too much cotton. Remember cotton will swell when wet.
    
15. When you’re happy with the amount of cotton you have passed through the coil, snip both ends of cotton of at the sides of the protank head with a pair of scissors. You’ll want to leave a little overhang outside of the juice feed slots.
    
16. Pre wick with a little VG, let it soak into the cotton. You can then push the cotton overhang back into the slots a little in order to pack it in a little. Personally I don’t worry about flavour wicks as I use fairly thick juice. You can though, by just placing some thin wisps of cotton over the coil.
    
17. Put your chimney back on and you’re good to go!
    
18. I’ve found that with thicker juices that I use, the little silicone seat is not necessary, in fact it tends to restrict wicking and gives me slight dry hits. Leaving it out gives me more efficient wicking, but of course this is up to you and how thick the juice you are using is.
    

Enjoy the great flavour and vapour of a cotton wick and contact coil on your protanks!

Shane Presser

Shane Presser has been vaping since 2013, and has extensive experience with advanced equipment, coil builds and DIY mixing. He is the man behind VapersGarage, and also more recently Aussie Vape Stores, a resource to help vapers find their nearest Vape Shops, and eLiquid Vendors.