Whenever anyone asks me about reasonably priced american made glass I always recommend having a look through both the
Jhanpixel and
Colie Glass stores as they have a very wide selection of stuff. From looking at these stores you'll notice that you don't need to spend $300 to get something good, there are plenty of high quality pieces in the $100-$200 range.
Jhanpixel offers a 10% discount to FC members and his prices include US shipping.
Colie Glass offer 20% off to FC members or 10% off if you pay through paypal. Most Colie Glass pieces have free international shipping. Since Colie Glass is no longer a member on the forum you would have to contact him through the contact seller button on the right hand side of page on the Artfire store to get the discount.
You will find that most bongs are a balance between smoothness and taste, so the more the smoke is smoothed out the less taste it will have. If you are using it to combust/smoke through then you might want something quite large (18 inches and up) with a high level of percolation but this depends on the person as some people don't have much of a coughing reaction so they wouldn't need a high level of diffusion/percolation. It also depends on how large a person you are and what size rips you find comfortable. If it's to be used with a vaporiser then I would advise getting a smaller piece with just enough diffusion to smooth the vapour with drowning out the taste. So what I am trying to say is you need to give us more information before we can recommend specific pieces. I understand that you will want to get a bong that you think looks nice and rightly so as you will be the one using it but the community here can however advise on how the piece will function.
Personally I would be a bit dubious about the piece from americanglassstudio as none of their stuff says that it is specifically made in America so they could be buying stuff in from china and then inflating the prices. They don't say what glass their stuff is made out of which is slightly worrying as they could be using low quality glass tubes to make the pieces. I could be wrong about this so it might be worth sending them an email if you want to buy something from them to make sure. IME most people that make and use quality materials will mention it as a selling point. All bongs are made from glass tubes that the artist will then shape, a no-name Chinese made glass tube is more likely to have imperfections and bubbles in which would drastically reduce the strength of the bong compared to one made with a high quality tube such as Schott or Simax.
I'd also say that some of their designs seem a little strange for example I'm not sure how effective the design with a honeycomb above a tyre perc would function. Adding to this that the honeycomb perc in that piece is given very little room to work make me think that they might not exactly know what they're doing and how they want their pieces to function. Also their stuff seems a little overpriced anyway compared to JhanPixel and Colie Glass so I'd advise you to go with one of them.
JhanPixel's stuff is currently made from good quality Chinese tubing until it runs out and then he's moving over to Schott.
Colie Glass use Simax for all the basic Tube and Breaker designs and they use Schott for all the other pieces.
I hope all that helps.
