Im all caught up now mate. You do a great job in a tutorial, that thread was no exception.
I had in fact missed it, but Im glad you gave me all the answers and info you did any way, had I gone there first the chance to hear all your cloning thoughts out loud may have been missed, glad for the outcome.
Haven't given up hope on my clones yet, every fibre in me wants to go to my wheelhouse and put them in soil, although part of the growers journey is to try new things and learn new skills, so forging on.
Bit of luck my 18 to 21 day window in soil based clones will be shorter using cloner, only 7 days in so plenty time.
Thanks a lot Gee, whatever the outcome you've taught me plenty already.
Here is some theory as it was explained to me on the mechanics at play and how it makes soil different than bubble cloning.
Normally, a plant has a circulatory system that draws water and food from the soil, runs it through the plant, expires the excess water out the stomata, and then uses the remaining water to push sugars back down and out the roots returning to the soil.
When you take a cutting you no longer have this. You still have a loop but there is giant holes now on intake and outflow.
The nutrients the plant will use to grow the roots are stored in the leaves and without roots you have no pump to circulate water to carry the nutes down so you must create it through gravity.
Water is heavy and flows down. So in soil cloning you need 2 things to be successful.
You need water on the leaves (misting) to permeate the leaves and flow down, and your wet soil needs to be less wet than the water on the leaves so it can enter and flow down.
If your soil is too wet then the water pressure in the soil resists the water pressure of the misting above and the nutes in the leaves can't flow down or ate greatly reduced.
So damp soil and wet leaves is what you want. Plus a very humid environment so the less wet soil can't suck all the moisture out of the leaves. The humidity keeps the leaves wet.
For bubble cloning you use the puck to isolate the cut end from the plant and the mist sprays onto the stalks, runs down, and drips off. The weight of the drips pulls the fluids down and out the giant outflow wound at the cut, but while that is happening fresh water is being sucked in through the giant gaping hole of the intake so you create inflow and outflow beneath the puck and mo misting or humidity is required above the puck. The circulation allows nutes to be grabbed and used on their way out the outflow.
If that makes sense to you and you keep that principle in mind for soil or bubble cloning and cater to it you will get roots far quicker and your success rate wil soar. Don't fight the physics, use it in your favor.
Then there is rooting hormone. This is vital here. Don't use very much. Its extremely powerful.
I use powder and it comes in a pill bottle. Its half full when new and I have cut hundreds or more likely 1000+ clones and my bottle is still half there of the original amount.
All the hormone is, is a chemical signal that tells the plant to grow roots here please.
If you use no hormone the plant will create its own at the bottom end where its dark and signal itself. Think about that for a second. Does the plant create a quarter teaspoon of rooting gel hormone or does it create a microscopically small amount just to send the signal?
Too much hormone will fry your cuttings fast. I tap all excess off until there is only a light dusty look left, no blobs or cakes.
The instructions on the hormone indicate this too.
Make sure you buy the right hormone too.
Small delicate cuttings work best with softwood cutting hormones, larger cuts like the ones I prefer use the hormone mix for semi-hardwood/semi-softwood cuttings (marketing created semi-hardwood and semi-softwood, they mean the same thing here), and trees, shrubs, berry bushes, etc use the hormone made for hardwood cuttings. What they are is different strengths of hormone.
I find smaller cuttings root better in soil vs bubble cloning, and larger ones root better in the bubble cloner.
I prefer bubble cloning because there is no hardening off period, you just plant and water, and you have opportunity to dust the brand new roots with myco before planting.
The paper towel tube method allows the root to stay long and not be all balled up like when you only dig a small hole and drop your roots into it all piled up.
Also let your roots in the bubble cloner get as long as your pot is tall before planting. If you have roots long enough to reach the bottom of a 5gal pot then use a 5 gal pot. I prefer 10gals but everyone has their own preference here.
Its not like you have to spoon feed a sproutling to get its roots to chase water to the bottom, you are already there, so you can immediately treat it like a plant, not a baby. No coddling needed.
I start with soil that is a bit too wet so the roots don't shock, overwater to run-off once or twice (I suppose you could consider this hardening off), and a week later its a regular plant with root tips starting to poke out and vegging nicely.
In soil you need to greatly slow photosynthesis as there is no pump so the nutes in the leaves will photosynthesize into sugars and you don't want that. So cutting the leaves back to about a third of their normal size really works well.
With bubble clones you have a circulatory system and leaf nutes do get pumped out the bottom so you need more nutes. Don't trim the leaves or you won't have enough nutes.
I determine where to cut the cutting by going down the stalk until I have at least 1 set of large fans in the cutting.
I hope that helps a bit more. Cloning looks easy, and it is, but you MUST pay attention to details here.
You have inflicted life threatening wounds to the cutting so every little bit helps. Add up all the details and success soars.
If your mother is sexually mature remove all preflowers and their calyxes from the leaves and branches you trimmed off at the cut site, you want roots not seeds down there.
The lower the branch/cutting is (the closer to the roots), the more rooting hormone/nutes contained in the cutting. Cuts from the top of the plant are loaded with growth hormones/nutes, not rooting ones.
On plants grown from seed the 2nd set of branches are called "clone branches" and definitely work the best.
Its going to eat a lot.
Not nearly the results I am used too, as after 10 days I usually see longer roots but these will survive now. 
If you ever need a hand to try upping your odds just pop in and ask. Cloning is really hit and miss until someone shows you how, then its really easy. 
