Hey guys,
I’ve just started out with DIY and thought I’d say hello!
Been vaping for a few years and now with the TPD in Britain kicking off it just made sense to take the plunge and have a crack at DIY. There’s a group of us who’ve split the cost - I did some research and watched endless YouTube videos and finally felt I knew enough to put an order together - got the PG, VG, VG nic and flavours from Darkstar Vapour and got syringes, bottles and gloves off Amazon.
We had a ‘Vape Lab’ (haha) on Saturday night, ordered some take away and put our heads together making a few liquids - it didn’t take long to start getting the hang of things and it wasn’t long before we had a our first flavour - a basic 15% FW Blueberry 70:30 mix. We didn’t have an RDA / dripper (which is now definitely on the buy list) so we just used a fresh T8 coil in the Baby Beast tank. It’d only had a few minutes worth of shaking and sat for 10 minutes but we couldn’t wait and decided to give it a blast.
I think we were all expecting to the first attempts to produce some horrible results but all of us had a big grin when we tried it - and this was without steeping or using that cool Norpro Cordless Mini Mixer (which is now ordered - coming from the US though so it’s a 3 week wait!).
After a few hours between the 3 of us we had 3 x 30ml bottles each - Lemon Custard, Strawberry Cheesecake and Blueberry Menthol - and a tester of a Black Cherry, Blueberry and Menthol (which turned out awesome!).
A few things we’ve learnt:
Digital 0.00 precision scales arrive tonight - after all the faffing around with different sized syringes it instantly became apparent how much easier it’d be to have squirty bottles and just use the scale’s reset button between each component - should massively speed things up.
We’d read all about nicotine and being safe - we used gloves throughout and kept referring to it as ‘death’ throughout the session haha - but we’ll always respect safety when dealing with nicotine.
Labels - we need labels. I knew this before we’d started but somehow forgot - and after using different styles of insulation type (one of the group is a plumber) to mark up which syringes were for which component (vg, flavours, nicotine etc) and using the tape to indicate flavours - we knew we’d messed up not having labels… So they’ll be in scope next session.
Pen and paper. Despite all the vids and posts about remembering to have a notepad for the recipes - we didn’t - and we ended up making some great tasting first mixes. I’ve remembered them, luckily, as they’re fairly simple but I’ll be writing them up soon but next time we’ll be writing them up as soon as they’re made, or even before.
Shaking is a PITA - we’d finish a 30ml bottle and then have to sit there shaking it and it never felt like we’d mixed it up enough - so we’ve ordered the Norpro Cordless Mini Mixer and it can’t come soon enough - it’ll save a lot of time and effort.
Flavours. We need more flavours! We’ve actually got 10 to start out with, so it’s not too bad and definitely a good starting point - but we’ve identified a few top rated recipes on here and we want to get the flavours bought so an order will be going in at weekend. We’ve started out with: Blue Raspberry (FA), Lemon (FA) Blueberry (FW), Sweetener (FA), Cheesecake (FW), Menthol (Dark Arts), Dulce de Leche Caramel (FA), Vanilla Custard (FA), Black Cherry (FA), Strawberry Shortcake (FW).
So, we’ve done it - our first home made liquids on the table! 
We all enjoyed it - it’s creative, incredibly cost effective and we had some great results. All of us asked that if we’ve had success on the first liquids - what are the ones going to be like once we start to understand ratios and some tricks of the trade (EM, sweeteners, Koolada etc) and get some of the key ingredients people rave about (Graham Cracker) bought…
Massive thanks to the creator(s) of this site - great little resource and we’ve found it really useful to get an idea of the ratios and flavour pairings. The forum was also invaluable in getting a grip on what a beginner needs to get started.
Hope to be posting on here more often and we’ll stick our recipes up as soon as 
Mike