Smoke and mirrors or the real deal...?
At the risk of sounding repetitive, especially if you’ve read any of my stuff here at Vaping360, you may know that I do most of my vaping on mechanical squonk boxes. I rarely use regulated mods, and when I do it’s usually to power some new RDA with a pair of monster coils for a review here.
My second love is mechanical tube mods with RDAs or RDTAs, which is why I was thrilled to get the opportunity to review the new MAGE MECH Tricker Kit from CoilART. It’s right in my wheelhouse, and features a lot of characteristics that get my vape motor running.
The MAGE MECH review sample is a well machined billet brass body wrapped in swirling, multi-color resin. The direct-to-battery top cap and magnetic fire button are also ringed in resin.
The kit includes a matching brass MAGE RDA with dual adjustable bottom airflow ports and gold plated deck. The deck very much anti-velocity, with old school dual split posts and four horizontal post holes, similar to a Twisted Messes RDA². Air is funneled through two 10mm x 2.5mm slots directly under the coils.
With the MAGE you get precisely one drip tip option – black delrin, but the cap will accept Goon and Kennedy wide bore tips.
Admittedly, I was so happy to get this kit that I ripped the package open in my car, and I’m glad I did. It was an uncharacteristically bright sunny day for Michigan in mid March, and when that welcome sunlight hit the resin body of the MAGE mod it literally exploded visually from the box – with swirls of pearlescent gold, green, orange and red.
I’ve had the opportunity to review resin mods in the past and have come away completely underwhelmed. The MAGE did not disappoint one iota, it’s a beauty.
The machining is quite good for a sub-$100 mod, and the resin mates nicely with the billet brass body. The treads are finely machined with just a bit of slop. I applied a tiny dab of Noalox grease and the treads transformed to butter.
The Kennedy-esq MAGE RDA is a perfect match to the mod, and the cap features a tasteful CoilART logo and three slots: dual opposing slots for dual coils, and a third slot for single coil configuration. My one wish is that CoilART would try to ship these with a color-matched drip tip. No matter, I swapped the plain-jane black delrin tip for an ultem Goon tip and the look was complete.
I grabbed a couple of pre-made tiger wire coils and mounted them to the deck. I’m not sure why CoilART went with the horizontal post hole configuration versus a velocity-style deck, but it makes things a bit more fiddly. On top of that, the tiny Phillips head grub screws did not inspire confidence and felt like they were on the verge of stripping out as I tightened the build.
Once I had everything secured, the dual coil build came in at 0.28Ω. I dry fired, wicked with organic cotton and painted the coils with some of my favorite vanilla custard. With a fresh Sony VTC4 I figure to pull 15A and get about 60+ watts.
With the airflow wide open, I took my first few hits and the mod performed exactly as expected. The button depressed consistently and smoothly. The MAGE RDA hit hard and delivered clouds of dense custard vapor. Flavor was very good for a 24mm RDA, and warmth was spot on – I usually vape at 50-60W with a big-wire, dual-coil build so this was about perfect. Yum.
What to say? It’s a mech mod and RDA kit that performs as a mech mod and RDA kit should when used correctly. The 510 pin extends nearly 2mm from the 510 threads on the MAGE RDA, so it perfectly safe as well.
What makes the MAGE MECH Trickster Kit special is the look and feel. It’s well machined, with good threads and a smooth magnetic button. The cap configuration assures there is no battery rattle adjustment necessary (like the Avid Lyfe Able mod and others).
And the look: the MAGE MECH mod is a thing of beauty. As I stated previously, I had the opportunity to review another highly touted regulated resin mod and came away somewhat underwhelmed. Not so with the CoilART sample. It pops, and looks like a million bucks for around $85 retail. With the MAGE RDA it seems like a steal, especially when you match it against some higher end mods, like the Able.
In the end, with favorable performance and an exceptional look and feel that defy its $85 retail price tag, I figure the MAGE MECH Tricker Kit will be in my daily rotation for a while.