Building the Custom Ukulele: What if the Customer Doesn't Like it?

Well the client and I had a long and fruitful discussion today. I'm going to build an instrument to my specs but to her ideology. This is the famous vegan uke. I assured them that no animals will be harmed in the building of this uke and that it is "animal friendly" in every way. This means no shell and no bone. Easy enough to do and I think it will make a fine uke. Ebony nut and saddle, stone rosette and perloid dots. The parts that irks my inner artist is the use of perloid. I hate the look and idea of perloid, but if she doesn't like the sound and I have to take it back, the first thing I will do is drill out the perloid and replace with something else. Anything but perloid.

Now as to the issue of shellac. I don't like the sound or look of acrylates or nitro so it is going to be shellac. Now as everyone knows, shellac doesn't contain bugs but is the egg casings of the insects. True, I sometimes find eggs floating in my unfiltered shellac, but bug eggs don't count. At least I don't think so. I've been talking with vegans to confirm this and apparently killing bug eggs is OK... You know, who would have thought that building ukuleles entails such questions as the sanctity of bug eggs, but there you go.

I don't mean to sound like I'm making fun of this person for their beliefs, but rather this is not something I expected to ever encounter as a design parameter. But you know what? I kinda like the challenge.
 
Right, so no hide glue! I wonder why bug eggs don't count? Of course the yeast that went into making the alcohol was a living organism, killed off by the alcohol it produced itself. This debate could go on and on.
Tru oil. Made from linseed oil. Not much else in there, alkyd resin which is produced from oil as well, likely a metal drier and a perhaps a bit of a petroleum based solvent. No bugs, virtually all plant material.
 
I've come across that finish before, although I've certainly not tried it. Going by the MSDS declaration it seems very much like an old fashioned pine resin oil varnish. Maybe even not that far removed from what the Cremonese were putting on their violins.
Unfortunately and not surprisingly it doesn't give us the ratio of resin to oil. That would have gone a long way to telling us how this stuff behaves. It's one of those that you would have to do a test piece or two to gauge it's properties. I can't see it being as hard as some of the modern oil varnishes, those with synthetic resins but it might be very similar to Tru oil, which isn't a bad oil varnish at all. I doubt it will affect the tone at all unless you start to plaster the stuff on.
 
I say Tru oil. Just one less bottle of the stuff not being applied to a gun stock. ;)
 
Shellac is an animal by-product, but like honey or milk, the animal isn't affected at all by it being taken away.

Use a Tusq saddle (Tusq is plastic, which is a tree by-product)- It will give a better tone then ebony.

Dots are pretty small so don't worry about the mop vs pearliod look.

Another cool thing is clay dots that the original fender guitars use to use- they have a dull matt look compared to mop or pearliod.

http://www.stewmac.com/SiteSearch/?search=clay dots

I just read that these stew mac clay dots are actually Corian copies. the original fender dots were real clay!
 
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Vegans typically do not eat eggs, drink milk, or use any products derived from animals. If your customer is a strict vegan, shellac would not be acceptable.

Also,shellac is not made from egg casings; it is essentially bug spit. From Wikipedia: Shellac is scraped from the bark of the trees where the female lac bug, Kerria lacca (Order Hemiptera, Family Kerriidae), also known as Laccifer lacca, secretes it to form a tunnel-like tube as it traverses the branches of the tree. Though these tunnels are sometimes referred to as "cocoons", they are not literally cocoons in the entomological sense. The insects suck the sap of the tree and excrete "sticklac" almost constantly.
 
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This is one of the most interesting conversations I've seen on UU. My nephew is strictly vegan, no animal products what-so-ever. I'm going to have to ask him how bugs fit in for him.
 
I recently heard an interview with husband/wife vegan chefs who run "Vedge" in Philly. They don't use honey, as bees are involved, though, when queried, they were a little thin on the ethical argument for this choice. I imagine shellac might be problematic. Isn't honey bee spit?

Nelson
 
As a beekeeper, I've heard vegans make outrageous claims about the cruelty of beekeeping based on false information. In general vegans don't eat honey or use any animal products. Bees make propolis from tree sap, I'd imagine it isn't much different from other insect based shellac. Lastly, honey is not bee spit or bee vomit, nectar is collected and stored in a separate pouch that isn't for digestion, enzymes are added and the nectar is placed into cells to dry off the excess water before being capped off for storage.
 
Beau Hannam Ukuleles said:
Shellac is an animal by-product, but like honey or milk, the animal isn't affected at all by it being taken away.

Yes shellac is a by product but all the bugs have not left when it is harvested so a lot of the beatles and eggs are killed in the process.
Click to expand...
 
Michael Smith said:
Beau Hannam Ukuleles said:
Shellac is an animal by-product, but like honey or milk, the animal isn't affected at all by it being taken away.

Yes shellac is a by product but all the bugs have not left when it is harvested so a lot of the beatles and eggs are killed in the process.
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OK. I'll grant you that insects may die during the lac harvesting process. But where does this all end? How about when the trees are cut down? For sure there are insects in the bark and in the wood that will be killed during the sawing process to say nothing of the toad that the tree fell on. The toad did not survive. Does this mean that wood is also taboo?
Click to expand...
 
Bill1 said:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/19/why-dont-vegans-eat-honey-google-questions
This is an article explaining about bees wax. I am no a vegan, but this answers the vegan questions about bees wax.

Carnauba wax is made from plants and is a very useful wax for wood finishes. Linseed oil and walnut oil are plant based drying oils which can be used to finish wood.
I do not think Tru Oil, which is linseed oil with chemical drying agents would qualify as vegan because the drying chemicals are toxic. As I posted before there are plant based products which are not toxic and meet some food safe standards. You can safely eat refined versions of linseed oil (aka flaxseed oil) and walnut oil, or use them to apply a finish.
So there are feasible alternative finishes which satisfy the vegan ethics.

Perhaps a useful aspect of this discussion is for wood workers to realise that in 2016 you do not have to have dangerous chemicals and poisons in your work shop for wood finishes. If you do not have a problem with bees wax, the safe finish list expands. You can set a up finishing station that is almost 100% food safe, and know that you and your employees/buddies are not risking death or needing respiratory protection to apply a good finish. Whether or not you are a vegan. Obviously there are disadvantages and costs to the finishes, like drying times, as well.
Click to expand...

Of course there are driers in Tru oil, otherwise it would take a mighty long time for it to dry. It's the same with linseed or any other drying oil, ages to dry. These oils don't have a resin content, so it's a pretty soft finish even when they are dry.
But let's move on to the toxicity. I doubt that anyone Vegan can claim that they don't use or wear products that don't have any toxicity somewhere along their production chain, even if they aren't toxic as an end product. They frequently have to use man made products that are made with a cocktail of chemicals. In fact these products are to be found everywhere, so ubiquitous that it's virtually impossible to avoid them.
If you really want an oil varnish without driers I can easily recommend one. It's made with linseed and a resin, no driers. Much harder to apply than Tru oil. You will almost certainly need a lot of sun or you will need to build a UV drying cabinet. It takes at least 3 months to get hard, then it acts very similar to Tru oil.
 
Bill1 said:
If you look at post #24 I have already found a supply of linseed based finish which has non-toxic additives
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I'm not trying to be argumentative, but you might need to point to the specific product. For example, from their bathroom furniture oil:

"Contains cobalt (2+) salt. Can cause allergic reactions.

R 43 May cause sensitization by skin contact.
S 2 Keep out of the reach of children.
S 24 Avoid contact with skin.
S 37 Wear suitable gloves.
S 62 If swallowed, do not induce vomiting: seek medical advice immediately and show this container or label."

I'm having trouble imagining any drying agent with zero toxicity...

Even their food safe countertop oil has a LD50 rating somewhere above 5 grams per kilogram for mammals. LD50 is the Leathal Dose 50% rating, the point at which half of the test subjects died, if my recollections from my farm chemicals course are correct.

Heck even water is toxic if consumed in quantity (albeit a highly improbable quantity).
 
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You won't get three coats of an oil varnish dry in three days without a siccative. You would struggle to get one coat dry in three days. I know, I've made the stuff from scratch a number of times. The stuff needs UV to dry it and lot's of it, especially if you omit the metal salt. It can be done but there are very, very few oil varnishes made today that do not contain a drier. Those that do tend to be very specialised, for the art market or for violin makers. They also tend to be very expensive. If you want to do a test try getting a bottle of raw linseed or walnut oil and pooling it on a surface like glass. Place it in the middle of a room and see how long it takes to skin over. You'll be waiting days if not weeks. Even heat treated linseed takes days to dry.
All they are saying is that their varnish is free of lead. I can't remember the last time I read of a varnish containing lead. They've moved on to other driers, which really just means that they are less toxic than lead.
 
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