All throughout my formidable years, when I smoked pot, I couldn’t roll a J to save my life and smoked premade cigarettes.
Now that I quit smoking pot, the price of cigarettes has demanded that I roll my own at a substantially cheaper price. I must pay 11 bucks for a carton and a half of smokes, easy.
The trick to rolling is not trying to make it nice and round at all. In fact, it was only after I gave up trying to make a perfect cigarette that I found I could make one.
I agree that shag is a good way to start, but I don’t like shag cut tobacco much. I stick with the Bugler/Kite tobacco which is entirely similar to regular pre-made cigarette tobacco.
This is how I roll a smoke, as best as can be described.
I open the papaer and plop some tobacco in it. It should cover about two thirds of the paper width-wise and maybe 3/4 length wise, and be about as thick as a standard pen. Of course, this is just eyeballing, don’t go measuring anything.
Once you’ve done that, close the paper over the tobacco and pinch it where there is no tobacco (where the ends of the width of the paper meet after “folding”) Stay close to the center. You’ll never, ever get a good smoke if you try and roll from the ends.
Now, slowly “roll” the tobacco in this make-shift paper envelope. Loosely apply pressure at first, and increase as the tobacco settles into shape. Again, as someone else mentioned, the “tightness” of the tobacco pack will vary with the style of tobacco you use. Shag is very poist, and a tight roll only causes it to extinguish itself.
As you’re rolling it tighter, the tobacco will settle out toward the edges and the diameter will aproach about half-a-pen. You can gte larger cigarettes later as you master it, but shit man, this is a non-filter. Go easy on yourself.
Once you’ve achieved the right diameter/tightness, roll the non glued side down almost all the way; leave about 5 millimeters (about a 1/5 of an inch) of paper at this end. Now, this is the trickiest part IMO: Pinch the tobacco so it causes a fold in this part of the cigarette, and roll it all the way up. Lick and seal, then puff away.
Again, this is the only way I can roll them. They used to be skimpier in the middle because I’d roll them around too much before pinch-and-sealing, but that comes with time. And always roll from the center. As you roll you can “slide” your thumbs sideways a bit to keep the pressure about equal over the whole smoke, but I would consider that an “advanced” technique only after rolling quite a few without doing that.
Good luck. I crutched on a rolling machine for quite some time, until once when I was away I had left the machine at home. I had to learn or pay exhorbitant smoke prices. took me a weekend and I never went back. In fact, I roll filters into my smokes now. Neat!