Brand of glass?

[christopher]

Hey all-
I'm just getting back into lampworking and want to know what brand of glass you guys prefer. I hear people say that "Pyrex got really crappy," etc., but what do you mean? The only time I ever got bad glass was a bad batch I got from Sundance a couple of years ago that turned black as soon as you stuck it in the flame.

So, what brand? What do you like about it? Where would be a good place to purchase it, keeping in mind that I'm gonna be buying very small quantities and I live on the Central Coast of California. Does anybody know what brand Sundance is carrying now? What has your experience been with Sundance?

So many questions...I hope you guys can help me out.

[Royal]

i mostly use simax but have also used schott in the past. both work geat.

[smutboy420]

I hear people say that "Pyrex got really crappy," etc., but what do you mean?
Lines lines lines. full of lines. I stopped using it cause of the lines going down the sides of each and every tube I have ever had.
I find simex is always nice clean tube and its in 5 foot tubes instead of 4 and I also like the fire polished ends instead of the cracked off ends that pyrex has.
Simex is also less green in color then pyrex.

[kruger]

i go with simex, i heard something of running their factorys to shit and not upkeeping their equipment a long while back. also ive had ALOT of truble with sundance. they are overpriced, unknowledgable, and have poor customer service. this is not a personal attackt, it is just my opinion of the contact ive had with sundace in the past. generations, abr, or winship is who i go through

-kruger

[PyroChixRock]

Personal attacks are not the same as biz opinions about companies. ;)

[Brian Newman]

I think Schott makes the best glass out there. Having said this, I should say that it is 40% more expensive than simax, and I am quite happy with the simax.

[rumplephorskin]

Schott is by far the best and theyve got a warehouse 3 miles from my door step. Sounds ideal but theyre so huge you cant just go and buy anything you like from them. If I want to buy whatever I please from that company; I am supposed to go to Glass warehouse. They do however occasionally have overstock and the occasional shipping problem that leads to shall we say..... coorperate overspill?? ;) Lets just say that im considdering changing my user title to "The Sanford & Son of Boro" Right now I'm waiting on a HUGE stack of tubing (about 3,000 stix of 27mm x 1.1). I'll post when it's available.
Their warehouse is like a lampworkers wet dream. Its about the size of a walmart and stacked about 30 ft high. Thats just one of the warehouses and they just deal with the tubing(still trying to get hooked up with the ppl that have the solid rods). Theyve got this stuff that is meant to be used as drain pipe for labs that is between 3 and 7 inches thick and the wall thickness is like 10mm. I dont quite know if i can work that on my barracuda but im willing to try:)

[rumplephorskin]

Christopher; id try arrow springs in shingle springs cali theyre right outside of sac and theyve got awesome tools as well. all of their graphite is of the highest quality and i happen to know that somw of the other tool companies around even buy from them. but theyve got glass and are good ppl to deal with.Just dont buy their mashers. they use really crappy tack welds to put them together

[ADelpapa]

I have been experementing with Pyrex, Simax, and Kimble recently. I have been using Pyrex for many years, so it is what I base everything else off. Pyrex was pretty crappy a couple of years ago, but it is really good again.

I like Pyrex best because of the way it takes a fume. It accepts silver and gold very easily, as well as the fume from colors such as Amber Purple and Blue Moon. I made 3 pieces with the same flames, size, etc. using Double Amber Purple with the three types of tube. The biggest difference was the color of the final pieces. The Pyrex had a lot of fume trapped between the frit and the glass, making a cool gohstly color surrounding each bit of frit, sweet. The kimble fumed OK, but not as good as the Pyrex. The Simax hardly fumed at all, and the frit was more of a brown than Purple.

The next difference that i have been noticing is the elasticity of the glass types. Kimble seems to be the least fluid, with alot of surface tension. This means that the bowl holes want to close down quicker, and the glass seem to contract and shrink up faster. Simax seems to streach alot more than Pyrex, with longer working times. I make sure to wait a couple of seconds before I sink my bowl so that the hole doesn't get all slutty and huge.

Also I have noticed that the simax blanks that I attach to my pyrex handles pop off if they are shocked by the flame. They pop off cleanly, right on the line between the two pieces of glass, no matter how well they are melted together. this suggests that they are not entirely compatible.

My vote, still pyrex. still need to try schott.

[nate dubbs]

I found a place in richmond Ca. that sells schott for real cheap . It's called american labratory supply. sorry I can't find their # . schott is the best as far as i know.

[Greymatter Glass]

I hear there's some really nice glass being made in China, India, and former soviet bloc nations....

Just putting that out there :)

-Doug

[jedi glassworks]

yea American Labs in RIchmond is the place to go, 3 warehouses full of glass, and i dont htink schott is anymore expensive than the pyrex, they're great people and they've got tools too, Mark of Sherri are the people to talk to. Their number is (510)620-0220, good luck and in a case of 1 inch pyrex Maybe 1 or 2 tubes have a line thru them so have fun

[christopher]

What about Chinex or Boro-X? There's a place in San Jose (not TOO far from here) that carries those brands.

Oh, and I didn't know what you meant about lines. . .I figured it out. The last piece of tubing I had was (I think) a piece of Kimble from Sundance (blech). I learned how to do everytning without pulling points, but decided I had better learn. So I kept trying and getting points all pulled off to the side (I know this happens when you're learning points, but I know what evenly heated glass looks like and some of these were as evenly heated as you can get). Lo and friggin behold, when I took the tube and set it on my rollers and spun it, you could see a little optical distortion moving around from where one side of the tube had a thick section. It made me feel a little better about my points that I kept having to fix.

Anyways, so whatsup with the Chinex and Boro-X? Sol, do you use either of these, or do you just buy your colors there and your tubing elsewhere?

[Satori]

I've used the cheap chinese crap from sundance. Sunsillica I think it's called. It's absolute crap. Every time I do any i/o work no matter how hot I get it, when I try and stretch it, it devits and has a haze on the surface that I can't seem to melt out. Avoid it at all costs! Yeah, it's cheap but you get what you pay for. I recently ordered some Pyrex tube and it has treated me well so far, even on all the i/o work. Hope this helps!

[christopher]

What about Boro-X? Anybody know about that stuff?