Backstory: I am a vegan musician. I recently had a conversation with another user on here after I had mentioned musical instruments and how they have historically used animal products. A lot of manufacturers have now switched to all plant based components but it is very very unclear as to who exactly is vegan friendly or not.
I have decided to attempt to create a spreadsheet detailing which instrument manufacturers are vegan-friendly or not.
These are the ones I have found answers to:
Fender - Seemingly yes
Bedell - Yes
Martin - Not vegan, uses animal-derived glue
Taylor - Yes
Moondot - Yes
Fishman - Some models are definitely vegan, have not found a definitive answer for their entire range
Steinway - Yes
Baldwin - Yes
Ludwig - Seemingly yes
Evans - Yes
Remo - Yes
Gibson - Not sure, I have found something about them using oysters(what?) in their guitars but this is about 20 years old so not sure if anything has changed
Incredibow - Yes
Cardiff Violins - Yes
Franz Hoffmann - No
T Sonada - Yes
If anyone has any knowledge of other vegan/non-vegan manufacturers to add to the sheet, preferably with a source, please let me know. If you find that any of the info above is incorrect then again please let me know.
https://www.colemansmusic.com.au/products/sigma-000mc-15e-mahogany-auditorium
Under the features section here they’re listed as bone. I hadn’t actually looked it up as I own one and bone is pretty different from plastic, especially when it splinters like mine did.
Thanks for the source, I am pretty sure that Fender is vegan then since I haven’t found anything online that suggests otherwise and haven’t noticed what you’ve described on the bridges and nuts on any of my Fenders.
If Fender uses bone, they’re probably a whole lot more selective about it. My nut only splintered because it was a dodgy part, I don’t think it’s the norm. Sigma makes relatively cheap guitars, so I wouldn’t hold Fender to the same standard.