Many of you may not know, but I'm going to school for mechanical engineering, and I've got two semesters left after I finish my internship (co-op). I've gained a lot of experience over the last year working for a local company designing and building forklift masts (the part the goes up and down, not the truck) and I've felt a need to put my design and drafting skills to external use.

Anyways, I used to be a rather large pothead while still at community college. Loved the stuff. But it made me lazy as shit and a lot less successful in school...so I stopped when I transferred to a university. Anyways, the next best thing was tobacco - but other than the occasional pack of cigs at a party, I didn't like smoking because the smell got everywhere and sucked ass. Don't get me wrong, I still love a good cigarette every now and then but I just can't do it regularly. So, I started paying attention to smoking hookahs - they're basically like a vaporizer for weed were to have a baby with a water bong, but for tobacco instead. So there's no smell, and no tar/etc/shit that's not good for you. Sure, nicotine isn't GOOD for you, but smoking hookah is certainly much less harmful than smoking cigarettes/pot/etc.

So, over a year ago my roommate and I took an old (more just a prop, it was never used) Jack Daniels liquor dispenser and turned it upside down and turned it into a hookah. For an example, see below:



And we ended up with a similar, rearranged product as seen in the video. Next, we added an inline cooling unit that we would just throw in the freezer, along with a different attachment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeeQbAis ... re=related

Gas mask is no longer in use, but that's an old video. Now in our current version we're using 1/2" ID tubing all through it with a nalgene bottle as the reservoir, and a copper pipe through the middle that is easily removed and cleaned. The damn thing draws like a pencil. Excellently.

Anyways, as I stated earlier, I wanted to put my skills to use as a soon-to-be engineer and instead of modifying some crap to make work for our needs. So why not make something out of billet aluminum in a 100% modular design? I've based this design off of the one you see in the video, but it's completely custom made. I started off with a general idea of what we wanted, and found some raw, scrap material to make it work. So, I picked up a few chunks of aluminum, some aluminum rod, and a couple of quarter inch thick acrylic tubes. Both were 12" long, so I cut one down to ~9" on a lathe. The other piece was a backup in case something happened during machining - I had never played with acrylic before.

Raw materials:



Acrylic pieces:



Overall model:



Plumbing/fittings



All of the fittings are -8AN size, so, I'll be using 1/2" hose again. It's flexible and it still flows well and the fittings...well, fit. The raw materials are in the process of being machined, but hopefully I can have them done this week for assembly next week. Updates to come once they finished piece parts are complete! Prints for each piece are below:

I can't tell from your picture but it looks like you're using solidworks. Bonus points for not being an autocad fag if you are.

Also, I'd be wary of using aluminum for that top piece with no insulation. I'm not terribly familiar with the specific thermal resistivity of acrylic, but that aluminum is gonna get hot as hell from the coals and conduct most of that straight to the acrylic, and it'll stay that way for awhile. It's not like lighting something, that consistent conduction is going to generate a large q. If it melts or even starts to deform so that vapors are created you're basically inhaling poison. I wouldn't be too concerned about the smoke once it's already in the acrylic, the convection coefficient shouldn't be that high, not high enough to transfer the heat effectively to the acrylic at least.

I may have interpreted your design wrong and you could have addressed this, but I just thought I'd give you my view.

I don't know anything about your design but the idea is cool as shit. One of my good friends has a nice hookah and once in a while we'll mix in some herb or hash with the tobacco, it's lots of fun.
Good luck, I'd be interested in seeing the final product!

Lol Hooker, it's actually Unigraphics NX6. Our company is actually making the switch the Solidworks in the next couple of months, but I'll be back in school shortly thereafter.

There won't be any heat transferred to the aluminum. There's a bowl on top (see the "fitting" picture for reference and the video for an idea) that attaches to a a copper tube that runs straight down into the water. Heat is of no concern in our current design and will be even less-so in this new one. The only thing that will get hot is the bowl itself which isn't shown in the model.

And hell yeah Montreal, mixing herb with it F*CKING lays me out. Completely different from smoking a bowl - I mean it basically is a vaporizer but water cooled too. Sadly though since I no longer smoke, neither of these hookahs have/will see the green stuff.

I am excited for this.

The trick with homemade hookahs is to make them aesthetic-- the visual of a hookah is almost as relaxing as the act of smoking it. I'll be interested in the end result.

BTW my company makes forklift attachments, maybe you've heard of us. I know we used to make masts but not sure how much we're doing these days.

Heard of you, we used to be you! Lift Technologies! Back in the late 80s when this plant was being built (when it was Cascade), my dad was the project manager for the construction company that built it. So it was cool to bring him out here and show him how "his" building is holding up.

But that's cool man. Crazy that you work for Cascade. How cool is that shit.

[edit]In fact, we still use a lot of abbreviations that originated from Cascade. Like, "CMC" still appears on our drawings. It used to stand for "Cascade Material Code", but now it's "Common Material Code". We took every abbreviation with a 'C' for Cascade and changed it to "Common" LOL. I'm actually revising an old print for hoses that's got ya'lls name on it still.



All of our prints for ORFS are dimensioned wrong. We dimension them from the end of the fitting like in the picture. Parker actually dimensions them from the face inside of the fitting....making all of the hoses we get from them about 10-15mm longer than what we think we buy lol. So that's been my project for the morning. Just happened to also occur on an old print that hasn't been touched since '92.

The aesthetics of this hookah is simply the fact that it's machined, uses AN fittings, and is just really clean looking. All of the aluminum will be polished and once it's lit and I get the acrylic laser engraved, it'll be baller status...

Minor update,

I got the orings I needed for the acrylic and the fittings. Parts should be done in machining this Friday. I'll probably assemble everything and use it for a short period of time but then I'll take everything back apart to polish the aluminum.

Lol ok so really you use Unigraphics to make a hooka design...i mean it makes sense its nice to see it laid out infront of you with a blue print to follow and specifics but i just never seen someone go this for just to make a hooka when all u need is a bowl water tube coals and tobacco and a hose or mouth piece to use. (Im sure theres more to it but thats the basics i believe) The work tho looks nice and looks like you kno what your doing are you gonna use a CnC (or CMC? cant remember the name of it) machine to make all the parts?

Nah it's all going to be done on hand machines. Most of it will be done on a lathe with a boring bar and the rest on a hand mill with a turntable.

As for using unigraphics to do the design, it's what I use at work and I'm most familiar with it. Yeah that's exactly the concept but when you're building parts from scratch out of chunks of aluminum you need prints that are toleranced and designed to work with each other. I want to be able to throw this thing throw a wall when it's together and for it to stay in one piece!

haha that's awesome about cascade. small world

Yeah it is lol. What do you do for Cascade?

Per facebook he's a "Developer / Business Process Analyst"

Yup that's it, I customize our JDE software & write interfaces between shit like engineering spreadsheets and our ERP product data.

also TPS reports

I always got yelled at when I was employed about forgetting my cover sheets.

I see...is that a fancy way for saying BAAN administrator? Lol

And like TV/Hollywood magic, it's done. Thing thing is a monster - it easily weighs 20lbs and is awesome to look at. I can't wait to get some lights/disco balls/lasers and shit in it! Lol, maybe not the disco balls but definitely some lighting.


Before polishing:


After polishing the middle neck:


I'll have some proper pictures of it later this week.

I'm liking this. Looks futuristic & nice.

Thanks dirk. Once I get the LEDs and stuff in it, possibly etching on the acrylic, and the rest of it polished, it's going to be sicknasty.

This thing looks pretty sick! I am glad other engineers use programs to design things for recreation too. Unfortunately I have not taken this much initiative on a project. Maybe it's time to change that...