If you are facing DIY for the first time: some things i wish I knew about rebuilding 10 years ago and overcoming perceived hurdles to having a go

TLDR: You can try rebuilding for $20 USD by buying an Oumier Bombus/Wasp or Stagevape Armor RTA ($15ish – or a wasp nano RTA is like $11), some demon killer or slacker cotton laces ($2.60) and ~3mm diameter pre-made SS316L coils ($1.50 for 10 - or get a spool of SS316L 28g wire, or 2x30g wrapped in 40g fused clapton for like $3 and wrap it around any ~3mm rod): use a chopstick, computer screwdriver or BBQ skewer to keep the coil in shape as you place it and clip the excess (make sure the coil doesnt touch anything except the legs in the posts). I am assuming you have tweezers, scissors and nail clippers or wire snippers somewhere in your house. You only need to cover the juice slots, so trim the cotton, but lean towards too much cotton initially and turn on SS temperature control on your device to prevent any burned hits if you overwicked (better than underwicking with leaking). Enjoy cheap flavourful rebuildable goodness. This is not a complete guide to building, just an overview. Watch videos like this https://youtu.be/hRBII_BaEGI?t=334.

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I reckon all regulated mod vapers of legal age and able to follow a video guide (e.g. https://youtu.be/hRBII_BaEGI?t=334) should try rebuilding; its easy, no more unsafe (for REGULATED mod users), cheaper and produces great results easily these days - in fact if you rebuild, you know more about whats in your vape! Back in the day I was upset to learn a lot of the disposable systems were using silica and even polyester wicks! So these are just some things I wish I knew when I started out rebuilding, and picked up along the way since I started re-using blucig cartridges 10 years ago or whatever it was. Maybe not everyone will agree with the points, but I thought it worth breaking down some old obstacles to rebuilding for anyone that is just starting out because of new regulations, or have been curious but just too unsure of where to start to try:

• The flavour is usually as good or better than disposable systems
• You dont need any special tools
• You dont need to be good at making coils
• You dont need cotton laces, but they help a lot
• Dont bother with dual coils to start with, just get a single coil system going firsts (and you will be surprised what you get)
• You dont need to get wicking right if you use stainless steel coils: temperature control is your friend especially if youre starting out

All you need a is a rebuildable tank or RDA (easy to find one for $15, even $5 some places), or even an RBA section for your disposable system, some bits and pieces you probably already have around the house, some wire or a pre-made coil, and some uncontaminated cotton. And a regulated mod of course (please dont just "have a go" of rebuilding for a mechanical mod...there is waaaay too much to go too badly wrong there).

YOU DONT NEED ANY SPECIAL TOOLS EVEN IF YOU BUILD YOUR OWN COILS!

• Sure its nice to have a 50 dollar coil master kit, but you probably have everything you need right now, except coils (or stainless steel, kanthal or nichrome wire) which will cost you about $3 to acquire in either case.
• You do need at least a rod to hold a coil's shape while you place it (or to wrap your coil if you are making your own coil). Fortunately most small screwdriver sets you probably already have will have a computer screwdriver about the right diameter for your a coil (or a diameter that you can wrap around to make a coil to fit in your rebuildable). If you have a ruler or tape measure, you just need a round rod between 3mm and 4mm fat.
• You can use nail clippers to trim all but exotic wire. So you are probably one bought ingredient away from rebuilding right now (wire)
• If you get into rebuilding it is nice to have a kit, particularly the metric coiling rods (not a stepped one though, they are hard to build spaced coils on), wire trimmers and detail tweezers – in fact pretty much everything else in a kit is very optional – you don’t need an ohm meter if you have a regulated mod and build a coil as described below. The ohm meter is not bad to build on though, and its a good idea to check resistance when youre starting out, before firing your coil. Everyone already has scissors for cutting cotton I imagine, and most rebuildables come with a screwdriver so you don’t need that bit either. So it might be cheaper to buy the tweezers, cutters and rods separately. Ceramic tweezers and metal brushes are only needed if you are doing "contact coils" (and you don’t need that yet, see below).

YOU DONT NEED TO MAKE COILS BUT SPACED COILS ARE CRAZY EASY TO MAKE!

• Buying decent coils is fast, easy and cheap now. Dont worry about which kind of wire you get, these are all fine tuning things. Get a 3mm stainless steel coil (round wire, clapton, alien, donesnt matter) if you arent sure, they fit in almost anything. You can buy coils that are 20 bucks a pair, instead of a pair of bucks for 20, but I am yet to encounter any that were really worth that kind of price difference especially when youre starting out. Its a refinement you can worry about later for that extra 10% of final flavour chasing.
• If you buy your coils, you can still put them on a rod and space the wraps out, for a spaced coil described below. This will save you problems with hot spots. You may also have to adjust how the "legs" or ends of the coil poke out (same side, on an angle, opposite sides) in order to match your rebuildable deck posts (where you screw the coil in - same side or opposing sides), and you want the coil on a rod when you do that so you dont deform it.
• I spent many years trying to master the perfect contact coil (where the wire is touching itself on each loop), and struggling with hot spots, and even heating - buying ceramic tweezers and metal brushes to get my coils glowing right...and then I saw someone make a "Spaced" coil
• A spaced coil is like a spring, where there is a bit of gap between each loop of the wire. This guarantees even heating, reduces spitting and is actually MUCH easier to achieve than a contact coil! You can be as messy as you like wrapping your wire around the rod, dont even care about the spacing. Start out with say 4 or 5 wraps, dont even bother making them close. At the end, use your fingernails to pull the first and last wrap apart from each other and it will naturally stretch out to a pretty even spacing. Then push the ends together to compress the spring. You can do this repeatedly until everything events out all by itself! You should end up with a bit of space between each wrap, and there is no such thing as too much space though it may limit the wraps you can fit in your deck (and more wraps means more clouds). The important thing is the wire isnt touching itself anywhere otherwise you will get uneven temperatures. Video example here (not my video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDW9E7v-OBk
• Its not a bad idea to clean your coil/wire with alcohol (or after you have installed it, heat it a little before you put cotton in) to remove any machine residues.

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YOU DONT NEED COTTON LACES BUT THEY HELP A LOT!

• You can technically wick with even cotton cloth, people still wick with rayon, even stainless steel mesh! I know people that wick with your grandma's cotton balls she uses to take off her makeup (note these are likely to have been bleached so I dont recommend it). Some people swear by the rayon makeup fluff rope stuff.
• Buying pre-fluffed, pre-cut, cotton laces is the easiest way (usually about 3 bucks for 20 to 40 laces, enough to do 40 to 60 builds) solves a lot of wicking problems for tanks in particular and its worth the cents of cost particularly if you are just starting out. Most will fit a 3mm internal diameter (ID) coil no problem, but different laces are meant for different IDs so match up your selections. You want the cotton to be tight inside the coil, but not so tight that pulling it through deforms the coil. Remember, when you juice it, the cotton will expand a bit anyway. If you have too much cotton, cut some away until you can pull it through.
• Cutting and fluffing your own cotton from pads is not easy, and will often cause wicking problems. If you are using a tank, making sure the cotton is sucking up enough juice, but not "choking" the wicking slots so the air pressure inside the tank cant equalise (which will cause a dry hit - you dont want that) is super important. So guessing the right width of cotton to cut, then taking off the top and botttom "skin" of the pad, then flufing it out with tools...its a hassle. You do want clean, pure, untreated cotton, ideally organic japanese non bleached stuff if cutting your own wicks, but dont stress over which cotton to start with. Just make sure its quality, not contaminated wtih dust or any chemicals.

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DONT BOTHER WITH DUAL COILS TO START WITH.

Im suggesting you try single coils to start with because

• getting a pair of coils in is usually much more fiddly, especially in a tank (RDAs are easier)
• its much harder to get two coils glowing or heating exactly the same, at least until you know what you are doing
• I don’t care what anyone tells you, bottom airflow single coil RTAs are flavour bangers these days, you don’t need dual coils to get excellent flavour – if you don’t believe me try a gear RTA, centaur RTA, Revolver RTA or Armor RTA or apparently a Destiny and come back to me.
• There just half as much stuff to get right and half the materials involved

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TEMPERATURE CONTROL IS YOUR FRIEND

• RDAs are really hard to get wrong. The main reason people give up on rebuilding tanks is that its hard to get exactly right the first time. Usually the coil isn’t the problem it’s the wicking - especially if you made a spaced coil and didnt deform it when screwing it in...its really hard for the coil to be the problem.
• If you don’t put enough wick in, then when using an RTA/tank you will get leaking, and when using an RDA or RTA if there is a bit of wire that isn’t quite touching the cotton all the way along you can get hotspots and burned taste. If you put too much wick in an RDA it doesn’t matter as long as you dont deform your coil. But in an RTA too much cotton in the slots will give you you “vapelock” where the bubbles cant move through the wick to equalise the pressure in the tank, and the coil dries out and you get a burned hit.
• Temperature control solves pretty much all these problems, you can lean towards overwicking and rely on temperature control to stop you getting burned hits
• Most people can “Get it right” on an easy tank within 3 or so builds, which has usually only cost you some cotton (you don’t usually have to start again with the coil unless you really mangled it somehow, just re- wick it if youre having issues).
• Most modern mods, even the cheap ones, can do some kind of SS (Stainless Steel 316L) temperature control, though you are likely to have to rely on "Custom/TCR" mode using 0.00092 (or 92, depending on the mod):

1. Set your temperature to 210C/410F to start with – I am saying this because cotton will burn if totally dry around 220C
2. Start with around 40 watts of power for the builds described here, and work your way up in 5watt increments from there
3. Turn the power up if you aren’t getting enough (not more than 75W to start with), and then turn up the temperature if you still aren’t getting enough

YES WIRE SIZES ARE CONFUSING: BIGGER NUMBER = HIGHER RESISTANCE = THINNER WIRE AND FASTER HEAT UP

• Generally speaking you will want wire around 26g to 28g starting out as a good middle ground for stainless steel 316L round wire. Claptons usually involve a 26g to 30g core (fat, tough wire) with 36g to 40g (very thin and easily deformed) wrapped around that; not much harder to work with really.
• Wire is like a hose letting electricity flow through it: the thinner the wire, the harder it is for electricity to flow, which means higher resistance, lower current flow, and less mass to heat.
• If you have a regulated mod you can usually build coils in the range from 0.15 ohms up to 1.5 ohms. You can use steam engine to check what you plan to do (https://www.steam-engine.org/coil?mat=ss316l&r=0.4&awg=26&id=3) and for example a 3mm internal diameter (ID) coil with 5 wraps of 26g round SS316L wire gives you around 0.4 ohms which is in my opinion a sweet spot for most mods in temperature control mode.
• More wraps = higher resistance, more surface area to vape from, slower battery consumption but also slower heat time because there is more mass to heat. Dont worry about these nuances at the start, its hard to get it really wrong if you do around 4-6 wraps of 26g to 28g wire not less than 3mm ID to start (but you can go bigger if you want and it fits without short circuiting - most of my tanks love a 4mm coil of 4-6 wraps spaced)

Just have a go, but dont forget to juice your wick , and check your build for short circuit on the top dome when you close it up, before you fill, if youre using an RTA. You will know if you have a short circuit by re-measuring the coil resistance after you close the tank up, even before you put cotton in ideally (and before you refill - you dont want a tank full of juice if youve just shorted it and need to re-position the coil).

Feel free to ping me if you have questions about starting out or need help. Also let me know if I missed out any major issues.

Note: I personally dont advocate building on unregulated devices like mech mods since this can be dangerous if you dont know what you are doing…even if you do know what you are doing there are just more things that can go wrong. Always check resistances on an ohm meter and do the calculations for your particular battery before messing with unregulated devices, which I advise against.