[Bushinryu]

Hi, all!

After going through forum posts with the search function, it appears that my question is not one that's been avidly discussed before so I hope it's not inappropriate for me to ask it. If it HAS been covered in other threads, I'm terribly sorry and I would appreciate someone leading me to it.

Anyway, I was just wondering what people's experience and opinions are on various brands of glassware. We all know that Pyrex is "the no. 1" brand for borosilicate glass lab equipment, but as there is basically an endless sea out there of more known brands (good as well as bad) and completely unheard of names, I thought it a good idea to see what other people make of it all.

What's people's general opinion of Kimax VS. Pyrex? As far as I've understood, it's of the same kind of borosilicate glass (3.3) and of the same manufacturing quality as Pyrex; just slightly cheaper due to the latter being more "famous". What's people's take on this?

Also, what about Schott? I've seen pictures of Florence flasks and such of this brand, but I have no experience with it myself. Here in Japan, Pyrex is the most common brand (as Iwaki Glass is a Japanese producer of Pyrex), but I'm considering switching to another brand for reasons of better availability--Pyrex glassware tends to (as I'm sure all in here are aware) be sold in bulk rather than single item purchases, contrary to, for instance, Kimax. This would make me save a bit of money and not go overboard on labware shopping.

Any other brands of the more unknown kind that anyone might like to recommend?