How to Make a Homemade Bong: 5 Steps (with Pictures)

Everyone has experienced it—you want to smoke weed but don’t have papers, a bong, or a pipe. Don’t fret. All you need is a handful of ordinary household items and a pinch of creativity.

Before we show you how to create a makeshift bong, we must warn you: this is definitely not the healthiest way to consume cannabis. This bong, and likely a few of its individual components, will be made out of plastic.

It’s never recommended to smoke out of plastic, as the heat from the smoke and the flame of the lighter may cause some of the plastic’s chemicals to leach into your system.

But, desperate times call for desperate measures. If you need a bong ASAP and are only smoking it for the day, the tips below should help.

Here’s how to make a bong at home that will get you through those frantic moments. If you really want to get creative, check out these homemade bong ideas.

Before you do anything to your water bottle, construct what will become the shaft of your bong.

To do this, you’re just going to make a pen pipe. If you want a full, in-depth explanation (with photos) of how this is done, read this. Otherwise, I’ll paraphrase. The pen you use should ideally be made entirely out of metal.

But if that’s not possible, at least make sure it has an unscrewable metal top. Unscrew that top, and using a butter knife, pop out the little bottom piece.

Remove the ink tube, and any other little parts (like the spring) so that only the pen’s shaft and the metal screw-on top are left. Turn the metal screw on top upside-down and shove the pointed end into the pen’s shaft so that it stays firmly in the shaft. Discard any other pieces of the pen.

PRO ALTERNATIVE: Get yourself an Invincibowl. It’s an unbreakable metal bowl for bongs that provides the best smoke filtration without getting too hot. The Invicibowl will give your home made bong the filtration and quality of a premium bong. Find it in 6 vibrant colors to match your style.

If your water bottle isn’t already empty, empty it and remove the cap.

Next, you’re going to use a lighter to create a small hole in the bottom third of the water bottle. (Imagine two lines dividing the water bottle divided into three parts. The hole should be directly where the bottom line is).

To do this properly, make sure you have the empty pen pipe you just constructed on hand. Then, briefly hold the flame of your lighter against the water bottle’s bottom third.

Once you see a small hole open up in the bottle’s plastic, quickly shove the bottom of the pen pipe through the hole. If you do this correctly, since the plastic was still hot, it should mold pretty tightly around the pen shaft.

If the hole wasn’t big enough for the pen shaft to fit through, quickly hold the lighter against the plastic again, and try again. The bottom of the pen pipe should point downwards towards the bottom of the water bottle.

No matter how talented you are at lighting holes in water bottles, chances are your shaft is not air-tight in your water bottle.

Therefore, you’re going to need to create a seal around its outside. The easiest way to do this is to chew up a piece of gum, then wrap it around the pen shaft right where it connects to the water bottle, creating a seal.

Fill up your water bottle, but just enough so that a portion of the pen shaft is under water. Do not fill up the water bottle enough that the water meets the part of the bottle where the pen penetrates the bottle or the gum will get wet and may fall off.

Look, DIY is a classic. There’s a rite of passage to making your own bong out of whatever’s in the kitchen drawer at 2 am, and we respect it. But if you’ve graduated past that stage, or you just want a piece that isn’t held together with aluminum foil and hope, there’s a real argument for investing in something built to last.

The Chill Limited Edition Black Rubberized Bong is that kind of piece. The build is vacuum-insulated with a rubberized black finish that holds up to the bumps and drops a glass bong couldn’t. Total height is 13 inches with an 8.5-inch neckpiece, which is a sweet spot for comfortable rips without pushing into “this won’t fit in my apartment” territory.

The internals are where the real upgrade lives. A durable aluminum diffuser downstem handles the airflow, a borosilicate glass slide sits up top for that proper glass-on-glass feel, and the interior is ceramic. That means cleaning is just ISO alcohol and a quick rinse. Chill also includes a manufacturer’s warranty for your peace of mind.

At $149.99, it’s a real step up from the homemade route. If you’re ready to retire the fruit-and-pen setup for something that’ll be in your rotation for years, this is where to start.

Other articles you can be interested in:

• How to Use Hemp Wick
• Skywalker OG Strain Review
• How Long Does Weed Stay in Your Pee