this is a great post and i’m glad I found it. I’m also new to DIY but I really like it and like most of you i’ve started out with syringes, you should have seen me going to pharmacies asking for syringes lol felt like i was a pin head. so i think my next order will be for things to get started mixing by weight. So if anyone would be so kind as to put together an organized list of the equipment needed that would be great and i’m sure it would answer a lot of questions for us that want to change over.??? This forum is so valuable to us newbies!!! @daath Thank you for the time and effort you’ve put in and continue to do. I will be making a donation in the near future. And @ryan8five0 thank you for the tip on glassbottleoutlet and bullcityvapor. I’ve been wanting to ask about both of these things. Two things I want to ask is when your using a glass bottle what is the best cleaning method? Also @ryan8five0 with bull city vapor what is there shipping like and what size flavor do you usually order? I’ve been thinking either 30ml or 4oz?? Anyone with suggestions feel free to chime in please.
I wouldn’t mind helping you out. Shoot me a private message 
I will gather a list here for you in the next hour or so and I will add everything to the first post at the bottom. Regarding your question about bullcityvapor. If I have never tried a flavor before, I will buy the smallest bottle they have available. If I have tried a flavor and liked it, and it’s not mainly used as a base ingredient, then I will buy a 30ml of it at $4 normally. If I absolutely love a flavor and I can’t go a mixing session without it, I will buy a 4oz bottle of it and refill the smaller dripper bottle. Typically all the TPA/TFA concentrates are really inexpensive in bulk. I think their 4ox bottle of TPA strawberry is about $6 I believe, which is just stupid cheap. 
Regarding the question about how to clean the glass dripper bottles. I’m sure everyone has their own method of doing it. I first rinse the bottle with warm water to get the leftover juice out meanwhile also sucking some water into the dripper and shaking it and extracting it. I also have one side of my sink barely filled up with soapy water, I’m a Dawn guy and it does awesome. I use the water to flush my bottles, I lay them on their side and gently agitate them so the water is flushing the bottle out. Once I’m done with that, I rinse with again with the tap water to get the soapy water left inside, out. Finally, I use distilled water as the final step to “sterilize” the bottle as best I can, along with the dripper. (Now that you made me think about it, I forgot my sterilization step for cleaning my bottles last go around and I’ve mixed in them and vaped the juice from them. I honestly haven’t noticed a difference, but I wouldn’t skip it on purpose)
ryan8five0 ---- is this where I need to start getting all of these items? Once I get them in hand
you will walk me through it? ----- Is this the communication venue you want me to use?
This right here. I’ve been mixing by weight for a little over a month. Still fresh to DIY itself, but I found mixing by weight too out a lot of the anxiety of clean up, and user error. Started with my PG/VG in 30ml bottles, but making a 30ml I use quite a bit of VG. Ordered some 500ml dispensing bottles, and think this will seal the deal to make mixing so much easier. Thanks for this write up. I’m going to hand this out to a couple of people I know that are curious, but I’m not articulate enough to explain it this well. Kudos… and now I need to go order the pipettes from Amazon 
Personally I would rather clean up then create the waste of throwing out disposable Pipettes every time.
I reuse my pipettes I clean 1-3 pipettes after I mix. Actually, I don’t use any pipettes, if I do max VG - drippers on my flavors, and my VG bottle is a squeeze type thing
I use maybe 3-5 pipettes every mix depending on the flavor I’m using. I use them for all the concentrates I’m trying to get rid of from Wizard Labs because they use glass vials for their products. All of my new flavors coming in are all in dripper bottles from bullcity. I won’t really need the pipettes once all the WL are cycled out of my rotation, unless I need them for a solution like EM or Citric Acid.
A little tid bit of help for folks using the weighing method… If you keep your finished mixes in multiples of 3 ml (3, 6, 15, 30 etc) it will be even quicker B/C each drop of concentrate (excluding Hangsen) is .03 g this means toh don’t need notjing but to drip into your bottle… If you buy from bull city you’ll find that everything they sell (including original Capella 13 ml bottles) all drip .03 ml drops (Hangsen drips .02) but for the most part it makes your mixes even quicker…
Weighing in general is very precise I urge all of you to draw up 10 units (1/10th cc) of flavoring (PG base) and see for yourself how accurate it is… Lastly you can also find nice scales on eBay too but make sure you buy from within the US or your own country, and alsways go with trusted buyers…
Still waiting for a scale I’ve ordered recently, so I mix with syringes, but I hope I will start mixing by weight very soon!
@Blues, good info. I’ve been waiting around to get info on “the scale” to get. There are a bazillion out there on Amazon and EBay, however, I’m a bit hesitant to purchase one until I hear glowing reviews from someone on ELR. I really do want to move towards weight mixing due to the fact that some of my Flavors are in dripper bottles that are 20/25 drops per ml and others are in 50/60 per ml. It makes mixing a pain to keep things correct when calculating mixes. So if there folks out there with great scales, I’d love to know the manufacturer and where they bought it.
I use twist-top bottles for Nic, PG and VG - you just twist the lid, tip and squeeze, even undiluted VG works because the outlet is larger than a dropper but still quite easy to control.
Watch out for PG-bases though, as the first drops will come out as soon as you tip the bottle.
And when you’ve finished mixing your batch, just twist the lid closed and give it a quick wipe so it doesn’t gather dust in the cupboard.
Something like these:
http://www.amazon.com/PLASTIC-Bottles-10-Pack-Tattoo-Supply/dp/B00B61TY0O
Hearts in Atlantis, one of my favorite movies. Is your name possibly Carol?
I use a 30ml turkey baster that I picked up at Walmart, but I really like the idea of squeezable bottles.
Search no further. That scale I listed is the best your money will buy for the price range and accuracy. If your searching for something better, take my word on it, you will not find a better deal for a nice scale. It may be $30-35 but it is a plug-in-the-wall scale and also runs off batteries if you need it to be portable. You do not want a scale with an auto-off feature because if you’re mixing and the scale turns off you will be screwed and have to start from scratch again.
You can read hundreds of reviews on Amazon and I know plenty of people who use the scale to mix and it’s the best scale I’ve ever used. I even have a $80 0.1g scale and my American Weight scale out does it in every aspect. Precision is key.
You do not want to measure by drops, that is not accurate at all so just throw that idea out of the window. As @Blues stated above, the bottles drip about 0.03g on the dot and the scale will literally read that to the hundredth of the gram.
There is nothing complicated about it and in fact, it doesn’t matter how many drops/ml one of your flavors has. It matters about the weight and the scale does all the work for you, all you have to do is tell the recipe calculator how much of that flavor you’d like and it converts it to grams on here. @daath has a function on the recipes where you can change the recipe to measure in grams instead of drops. He has done a standard 1ml = 1g ratio for weight and that keeps things consistent as can be. Consistency is the key when mixing.
Yeah, I ordered a LDPE 8oz bottle off of Amazon for $3 shipped for just my VG. The VG is the only one I was having a problem with seeing as the consistency of the liquid is so thick compared to PG. I keep my nic and PG in the glass dropper bottles and I’m going to transfer my VG into the 8oz bottle that should be here today.
If the LDPE plastic allows some molecules in, I’m fine with that. I use my VG pretty quickly in comparison to my PG and nic. If it makes a noticeable difference though, I’ll search for a HDPE plastic that is like the 8oz bottle I bought.
Let us know how you like it once you receive your scale. Always love to hear from the people that take the leap into the deep end!
I would only re-order those pipettes from Amazon for their dispensing box. I think any generic 1ml or 3ml pipette will work. I’m only saying this because the price of those pipettes went up about $6 in the last 2 weeks. I guess they sold enough of them lol.
Once you go to weighing you’ll wonder why you ever messed with syringes and such…
The scale @ryan8five0 mentioned is good… I’ve seen a lot of folks swear by it on reddit…
Although there are other scales, that are good too… Just make sure you do your homework LoL !!
I have my eye on a jewelers scale that is precise to the thousandth .001 Its not needed and I suggest not bothering with one because they’re very sensitive and the max weight is not a lot… I just have a bit of a “thing” for it ever since I seen one in use inside my uncles jewelry shop years ago but back then they were A Lot of money !! They have come down in cost a lot but still a bit costly,.
Best advice I have is always weigh the empty bottle first and write it down !! That way if you loose your place ot forget what you have put in… You can easily find your way back with a little math…
Just ordered a scale and can’t friggin WAIT??? It sounds so much easier!!!
Just got my scale in the post today! Ahhhh, grams; one unit of measurement to rule them all. A little calibration, then, Tare button, here I come!!!