How do you know when to rewick? I'm waiting for some juice to come in before I try this method, so I'm curious what I can expect to know when to change or rewick.
If you don't burn it, you're going to need to change it once enough gunk collects. If I'm using a tank, I can tell by the color of the juice (it browns). The taste gets caramelized, as if the sweetener in my juice has been fried onto the coils. That's when it's time. How long that takes really depends on the wattage you vape, and the juice. Clean unsweetened juice can go for a long time.
Also wanted to say that this thread got me to try cotton for the first time... and the second. First on a Phoenix to get the concept down, see how much the wick expands, and second on an Evod to use regularly.
LOVIN' IT. The taste is improved, but what I'm really digging is that the squishy expanded cotton does a much better job than silica on the Evod with gurgling/flooding/dry hits. Each hit is nice and wet, and I don't have a bit of leaky gurgles.
I used cotton balls, BTW. It feels safer because sterile, clean cotton balls are just that: sterile, clean pieces of cotton. I have no idea the thickness I used. I wound the wick on a toothpick (I prefer to do them freehand on the wick, but was scared of wrapping cotton too tight), and a wick skinny enough to slide through swelled nicely after priming.
I'm very happy right now. Not just because I have more than one wick option to work with now, but because I'm on a mission to vape cheap--but well--and wick just became a lot cheaper.