RDA Reviews

THC Blaze Solo RDA

After being impressed with the Thunderhead Creations Blaze RTA, Antony was keen to try the Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA. Squonk mode engaged!

by Antony Lord
Dec 19, 2022

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Recently Mike Vapes teamed up with Thunderhead Creations to bring us the Blaze RTA which left me thoroughly impressed (review HERE), so when it was announced that they’ve teamed up for a second time to bring us a single coil RDA which was designed as a spiritual successor to the recurve RDA, I just had to take a look. Our friends over at Sourcemore have come up with the goods once again and have been kind enough to send over the Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA for me to try out.

Specifications

24mm diameter
Single coil deck
315 degree honeycomb airflow
Squonk capable

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA unboxing

The Blaze Solo RDA is available in a whopping eight different colours plus there’s an additional version with a glass chuff cap, I was sent the gunmetal variant for the review. Also in the box you get a coil cutting guide and a baggie containing all the accessories and a manual.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA bundled goodies

The extras include two Allen keys, one for the grub screws on the postless deck and one for the positive pin should you want to swap over to the included squonk pin. By default the deck uses grub screws, but there are also flat head screws included if that’s what you prefer. A pair of nice triple core fused claptons plus some cotton are also in the extras bag but the coils are Nichrome, so once again I won’t be using those thanks to my nickel intolerance.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA close up

The Blaze Solo RDA is a rather stubby 29.5mm tall including the supplied drip tip and has a rather understated design with a simple “Blaze” logo on one side. It features a simple one piece top cap with the whole thing rotating around the build deck to provide the adjustable airflow capability, this is centered around two cyclops style slots on either side of the barrel with hard stops in the fully open and closed positions. There is a little bit of doming going on under the top cap as well.

I quite like the supplied drip tip but although this is described as an “810 drip tip”, it’s actually a non standard size just like the one included with the Blaze rta. It’s actually a teeny bit smaller than a standard 810 so this won’t fit in anything else and you likewise won’t be able to use your own drip tips here which is disappointing to say the least. You can at least buy spares separately should you need to, and if you’re the sort that regularly misplaces them you might want to consider ordering extras.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA build deck

Now onto the main event, the build deck. This features Thunderhead Creations 315 degree V shaped “Victor” design with forty three separate honeycomb airflow holes and this is angled downwards which should make it relatively hard to over squonk. The top cap is held on by two O-rings which have the perfect amount of grip, and you have a postless style build deck arrangement that’s suitable for coils wound in either direction.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA squonk mode

As I intended using this in squonk mode, my first task was to swap over the positive pin. When doing so be aware that the positive block is now loose and, as always, keep a close eye on any insulators making sure they’re all back in the proper place.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA coil

Next up is installing a coil with the coil legs cut at the suggested 8mm. This is relatively straightforward but I would suggest using a coiling rod as this aids greatly in getting the legs into the posts, they have a tendency to want to sneak into one of the airflow holes otherwise which can become a bit frustrating.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA wicking

The Blaze Solo RDA has a rather deep 12mm juice well so you’re going to keep your cotton fairly long before tucking it into the wells.

With everything now ready to go, I started this off on a bypass mod but that turned out to be a mistake. The Blaze Solo RDA has absolutely tons of airflow, much more than I was expecting, and even with the airflow cut right down on my 0.28ohm build, the vape was rather weak and the flavour was drowned out. At this point I had two options, drop the ohms to up the power and hope this improved the performance at the sacrifice of battery life or stick it on a regulated mod… luckily I remembered that I have a couple of 21700 powered squonk mods so one of those seemed like the ideal candidate.

This improved things massively, with the ability to now dial in the power I got much better performance with bags of flavour. The 21700 battery meant that I got decent battery life as well despite the relatively high 70+ watts needed!

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA squonk mode

Pros

Well made
Easy to build

Cons

Non standard drip tip
Needs lots of power

Conclusion

The Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA is a bit of a mixed bag, it’s everything you would expect coming from a seasoned designer like Mike Vapes but you’re going to need a lot of power to get the best out of it.

Many thanks to Sourcemore for sending the Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA out for review. As always they’ve sent me a discount code for you to use as well: discount code is TBSR.

$18.99 - Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA.

Thunderhead Creations Blaze Solo RDA handcheck

Antony Lord

Reviewer at POTV

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I was a twenty a day smoker for 25 years and like most smokers I was always going to quit "next week". Having hit my mid forties and having the usual smokers cough and difficulty with anything more than moderate exercise it was obviously time to give up the cancer sticks. I bought my first e-cigarette in 2013 when they were expensive, difficult to find and quite frankly... crap. I used it for about a week then went back to the roll ups, mark up another failed quit attempt. The fact that I had just changed jobs and was under quite a lot of stress probably didn't help. Move on to 2016 and whilst I was browsing eBay I noticed that one of the suggested items that would occasionally pop up was for a cheap e-cigarette. It looked similar to the one I'd bought 3 years earlier but it was only £5 (about 8 times cheaper than before) so I decided to give it another go on a whim. Once the kit arrived I managed to gradually replace the cigarettes with my new kit over a two month period and got into watching YouTube reviews for newer kit. My cheap and cheerful kit was replaced by a more upmarket affair, and being a noob I made a mistake once it arrived... I put in the supplied direct lung coil, this was of course a complete revelation and I haven't touched a cigarette since. Oh and I no longer spend the first five minutes of every day having a coughing fit either.