[motaco]

So I never found a tremendous amount of info this pipe and I ended up doing a bit myself. If you have been looking at this pipe I'll tell you what I know.

In the last several years there has been much advancement in so called "scientific glass". Which is generally a clear glass to help gauge the amount of smoke being ingested, but more importantly it refers to the new advanced filtration gadgets being built into water pipes. Disc, showerhead, waffle, inline, dome, halo, etc. Many designs of "percolators" and "diffusers" have been made and surely many more are to come. But they all have the same premise of increasing the surface area of the smoke that comes into contact with water, and thus cooling it. While at the same time trying not to cause excessive drag in the pipe.

Nearly all of the cooling technology at this point is involving water. Water no doubt helps cool the smoke, but it also takes much of the flavor out of the smoke. Also many of the pipes are rather large, and meant to smoke large quantities in a single rip.

Somewhat unique to the pipe world is the "Helix" pipe which is a hand held dry pipe that uses The "Bernoulli principle" to cool the smoke. The Bernoulli principle has become a hot topic in the "green" industry as a way to cool exhaust fumes in a variety of applications, but has also proven to work at cooling smoke within a smoking pipe. The way it works is that once the smoke leaves the bowl it enters a bulb shaped chamber that leads to the mouthpiece. In this chamber are 3 small holes that are all set at an angle.The smoke is hot and dense, and when the smoke stream enters the chamber it is hit by fresh cool air which causes the smoke to spin rapidly within the bubble of negative pressure caused by the cooler air jets. It peels off a thin layer of smoke much like you would peel the skin off an apple in one piece. The smoke becomes layered with fresh cool air, and the surface area of the smoke that comes into contact with cooler air is dramatically increased.

A picture is worth a thousand words and I reccomend you look at the video of the smoke spinning on their website to get a better idea of what I'm trying to explain.

I looked at the science of it and it made sense, but I was a bit skeptical of how well it would work in a hand pipe. I was also worried infusing air into it would make an airy hit. My concerns were unfounded and I am very impressed overall and it is easily the smoothest smoking dry pipe I have ever used in all my years of smoking. Not only does it cool the smoke, but since it is infused with fresh air the smoke doesn't seem so hot and harsh. It has a much softer, puffier feel to it as opposed to the dense oily smoke dry pipes usually produce. It also preserves the flavor very well since it is air cooled. Due to how much cooler the smoke is you can take much larger rips than what a normal dry pipe will comfortably allow.

The visual aestheics are worth mentioning because the pipe is rather ugly. But once filled with smoke the spinning action is like watching a tornado in a jar, and is quite amusing to look at, IMHO much more so than any glass bead.

I'd reccomend it to any regular dry pipe user, but also to the bong guys who are used to soft smoke and big rips. Its a great pipe for topping off or for times you want a soft smoke without the hassle of a bong. I like it for video games or movies, where I want to continually smoke, but I can't constantly take bong rips.

So now I sound like I am working for Helix, but I am not. So hold on, here is my critical portion of the review.

If you don't smoke out of the pipe properly it isn't any smoother than any other pipe, in fact it may be hotter. To use it properly once you have taken half your rip you should smother the bowl with your palm, and let the intake jets do the carb work. You'll see the tornado begin to tighten, as it disappears use the full carb. If you don't do this and just hit the carb what happens is all the smoke in the chamber stops spinning (thus being cooled) and you end up with a large hot blast of skim milk, rather than a jet of whole milk. This is why I think you see some folks who are unimpressed with the perfomance.

It seems the company has settled on one standard design that is proven, and used in their 3pc system. However in my search for other reviews and info I've seen several that did not perform very well, and seemed of shoddy quality. Also at the headshop where I bought mine they had "helix" ash catcher type things that go behind your bowl and infrtont of your downstem. Compared to my flawless piece the others were of noticably shotty work to the point I wondered if they were counterfeit. The holes were of inconsistent size and some were sealed completely! My pipe I inspected carefully before purchase and there isn't a flaw on it. It is of fantastic quality and thickness and I got it for only $70. I've paid that for thin dichro pieces of crap not many years ago.

In final thoughts I just wanted to say I love mine and couldn't be happier with it, but I have seen less than stellar ones. These quality control problems may well have been corrected as the company has grown, and those trashcatchers I saw might well have been counterfeit. I think that these pipes will become very popular in the future and we will see many more of these pipes and various designs which is already happening. A cheaper knockoff model is being offered called the "jetflash system" which I don't know much about. Plus a few companies have come out with larger bong or steam roller sized pipes with the same technology.

So it looks like there are a few companies getting into the market for helping design new dry pipes that are science glass. Which has typically been aimed at water pipes. The market is expanding, and this can only mean good things in the future for tokers.