To start making tubes, you are going to need plastic. The most basic way to get plastic is as follows:
First combine sand, clay, and coal/charcoal to get pellets
Smelt the plastic pellets to get plastic sheets
Finally combine 2 plastic and 1 glass like above to get 8 tubes
If you want more plastic pellets, you can use this method to produce 32 tubes worth of plastic at a time:
Smelt a bucket of milk to get milk curd.
Combine that milk curd with coal/charcoal, gunpowder, and 1 bucket’s worth of water (can use forestry cans and other containers like it) to get 8 plastic pellets.
BuildCraft Users:
You can refine fuel into liquid plastic using the refinery. You get 1 bucket of liquid plastic for 1 bucket of fuel
Combine a bucket of liquid plastic with coal/charcoal to get 8 plastic pellets
MineFactoryReloaded Users:
You can use MFR plastic sheets anywhere Tubes plastic is used.
Recipes
Restriction Tube:
Adds 5000 to the path length. Can be colored
Ejection Tube:
Has a forced open direction. Items will be ejected out of the open side. Can be colored. Can be rotated with a BuildCraft compatible wrench
Filter Tube:
Can precisely control what items can enter it
Compressor Tube:
Compresses items that pass through it to specific stack sizes. Useful for reducing lag.
Extraction tube:
Pulls items out of inventories at a rate of 1 stack per 10 ticks. Can be disabled by applying a redstone signal. Can be colored. Can be rotated with a BuildCraft compatible wrench
Requesting tube:
A combination of an extraction tube and filter tube, can pull from inventories both adjacent, and remote. It will also pull the exact amount of an item specified in its filter. Can be rotated with a BuildCraft compatible wrench
Routing tube:
This tube allows you to choose what destination an item will have. When deciding the path for an item to take, the shortest valid path will still be chosen.
Block of Plastic:
A decorative block made of plastic
Redstone Circuit:
An item used by the filter tube recipe