Dammit blop! I just read the first page of this thread and I wish you lads would use the proper terminology for these items.
The “pump” is the device that moves air out of the cylinder. I’ve had a few, starting with a porn shop “bulb-style” pump, then moving on to a vacuum cleaner (which I promptly destroyed). I then went with a starter “trigger-style” model, which I broke, then a plastic Mityvac (or perhaps it was a knockoff), which never really worked properly, then a high-quality brass plunger style pump, which lasted the longest of them all.
In terms of “tubes” (aka “cylinders”) I quickly discarded the cheap cylinder from the porno-shop-bulb-experiment in favor of a slightly thicker-walled tube that came with the first trigger-style pump. Finally, about ten years ago, I purchased a “NW Pumpworks” acrylic tube from “Little Sister’s Bookshop” on Davie Street. Cost me about $100 for the tube and pump.
GM