You can certainly do this. There are a lot of homemade bong ideas. And just as there are many different kinds of bongs—made of different materials and ranging from mini bongs to large ones—you have a wide range of possible designs to work from.
Whichever you choose, keep in mind they usually follow the same principles of operation.
So to understand what you are making, you need to ask yourself, how does a bong work?
How does a bong work?
A bong is often shaped like a vase, with a large bottom, which is filled with water, and a long neck. The bowl where you burn the cannabis is found at the base. You light the cannabis and inhale through the neck of the bong, pulling the smoke inside, which gets cooled and filtered by the water. When you have as much smoke as you want, you pull the bowl out of the bong, and the smoke is cleared right into your lungs, giving you a heavy dose of weed all at once.
How to make a bong
If you want to start making a simple bong, you can start with a plastic bottle, like a soda bottle. You can follow the directions here. Basically you:
- Fill the bottle a quarter of the way up with water
- Poke a hole in near the neck of the bottle to act as “carb”—allowing you to cover it when drawing in the smoke and releasing it, so you inhale the smoke into your lungs
- Make a hole just above the waterline for the down stem
- Use an empty highlighter and foil to create a down stem. Remove the ends of the highlighter, so it is an empty tube
- Wrap one end of the tube with aluminum foil, press the middle into the tube and poke some holes into the foil
- Insert the down stem into the hole above the waterline
To use your new bong, you would pack some cannabis in the aluminum foil bowl. Then you would cover the carb with your finger, put your mouth on the mouthpiece, light the weed as you inhale the smoke into the bong, and then lift your finger off the carb to allow the smoke to woosh into your lungs.
You can also use a plastic bottle to create a “gravity bong,” which uses air pressure and water to draw smoke. There are a lot of ideas out there for unique homemade smoking devices.
If you are going to use the homemade bong more than once, you should clean it between uses, as you would any bong.
Novelty bongs
You can use almost any kind of cylinder for your bong, such as an aluminum can. But your creativity doesn’t need to stop there. If your fancy turns to produce, then you could use an apple, cucumber, or carrot.
Or you could turn to a plump and delicious pumpkin, as outlined in this how-to article. Using a knife and spoon, you’d carve a bowl in the side of the hollowed-out pumpkin but not break right through the flesh of the protuberant fruit and then poke a tiny hole into the interior of the pumpkin.
You could use a screwdriver to create a carb hole. And then, on the opposite side of the bowl, near the top of the pumpkin, you would create the mouthpiece hole. If you had a down stem from a glass bong, you could also put it in this hole for a premium smoking experience.
This is a very basic novelty bong. There are, of course, more complicated designs for bongs that may make more sense to buy rather than try to make.
