At one point I was making a lot of flutes from Delrin. Pretty much everything in my catalog at some point had a Delrin version. In fact, I was calling them my "Adventure Series" (trying my hand at some catchy marketing jargon) because they were designed to be taken outdoors, on backpacking trips, etc..
Delrin makes fabulous sounding flutes, no question about it. It machines well, is practically indestructible and makes these amazingly smooth bores which give nice response. But I don't use it any longer. I do have a bunch of odd pieces still in my shop that I periodically use for making different gizmos that help the process of flute making (making special holders, clamps, mandrels, etc.), but I do that on a very small scale and only because I have a bin full of the stuff. But I won't be buying any more of it.
I would never claim that my flute making process is "all natural". I use glues and epoxies, resins and various solvents. I definitely have a carbon footprint. So why draw the line at Delrin?
It's totally personal, but the plastic waste just bothered me too much. In an age where we are drowning in all the plastics we produce, I stopped feeling good about my flute making when I was dumping big handfuls of Delrin shavings into the garbage, and (even worse) sanding it down and creating clouds of micro-particles that were blowing out into the environment.
In the larger picture of global waste and pollution, I think flute makers barely register on the scale, and the amount of micro-plastics that I'm creating are as nothing compared to what happens when we wash all of those synthetic fleece garments. The amount of rain forest timbers we use, the amount of plastics, glues, epoxies or solvents are
tiny when placed against the epic levels of pollution represented by the plastic packaging industry, or an oil spill (for example). I really don't think flute makers contribute very much in that sense. But somehow I found that Delrin was a bit symbolic and that every time I went to work with it I didn't feel particularly good. It's all in my head, of course, and I don't think there is any clear-cut ethical frontier that gets crossed when I pick up a piece of Delrin, since I use vacuum resin stabilization on wood. It's one of those arbitrary things. And it's too bad in some ways, because Delrin instruments can be so good and trouble free for the end user. But once it got in my head I couldn't seem to shake it, so Delrin became the scapegoat
.
But it also started a train of thought that I've been contemplating for a few years. I'd like to find a way to make my flute making "all natural", or at least mostly. Use only natural finishes and materials, etc.. This is still just an unrealized impulse at this point. But the other day I was turning some resin-ivory to make a few Baroque style ornaments for a flute (I had never tried this material before), and the stuff is totally toxic. Smells like polyester resin (styrene) when being machined, and I really didn't like that. But now I have a bunch of these rods, and I'll probably use them up, but I won't be getting any more of it. I'd rather stabilize some holly and use that instead, making a compromise that is more agreeable.
However, until such a time as I embrace an all-natural approach I certainly can't fault any maker who uses Delrin. And even though it creates plastic waste, it also doesn't require the use of tropical timbers or any type of finish. And just as a point of interest, things like linseed oil are far from being eco-friendly, even though they are a natural finish. So "purity" is only ever relative.