Macalaster Bicknell Company of New Jersey stocks a variety of colored glass tubing for artisan glass blowers and lampworkers. Although our clear glass tubes are often used in scientific applications, our colored glass tubing can be used to create a variety of stunning glass pieces like goblets, paper weights, beads and pipes.

Colored Glass Tubing

Borosilicate glass is forged from boron trioxide and silica, which gives it a low coefficient of thermal expansion. Essentially, this gives the glass a high resistance to thermal shock. This property makes the glass an ideal material for laboratory glassware, because it doesn’t crack or break down with repeated heating. However, this property is also great for lampworking, because the glass doesn’t shrink rapidly when cooling. Borosilicate is referred to as “hard glass” for this reason. It can be heated at higher temperatures and is much more flexible to work with than “soft glass.”

Soda-lime and lead glass are considered soft glasses because they melt at lower temperatures. However, even temperatures must be kept when working with the glass, or it can crack and break.

Hard vs Soft Glass

Hard and soft glasses can come in tubing or solid rods, depending on intended application. Rods are best for solid work, like bead making. Colored glass tubing is great for creating hollow wares, like vessels or containers.

When mixing glasses, always be mindful of their respective coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). If their CTEs are incompatible, a mounting pressure can form as the piece cools, and will often crack or violently shatter the piece.

Macalaster Bicknell Company of New Jersey stocks a variety of Boromax colored glass tubing. After you place your order, your shipment will be hand packed by our team of experienced personnel to ensure your tubing arrives in one piece. Each package is checked twice to ensure a safe delivery. However, if for some reason your tubes arrive damaged, we’ll work with you to process a claim.

Browse our selection of colored glass tubing and place your order today!