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Larval Stage
This would leave them vulnerable to predators so for protection, the females secrete the waste sap into a bubbly compound that hardens into a shell. It repeats this operation several times as it grows. |
Wooden Cremation Urns by Practical Conservationists Our Durable Finish Materials Are Biodegradable What We Do With the Waste From Making Cremation Urns We practice conservationism in the interest of promoting old growth. Fine wood products usually are not as fine as they used to be. This is because the lion's share of the wood out there is young wood. Young wood acquired from tree plantations is fine for the everyday stuff like bunk beds, starter home kitchen tables, etc, but there needs to be something left over for the really good stuff; the kind of woodworking that gets passed through many generations, the kind of woodworking that ends up in museums, and the kind of woodworking that is for things of the heart. Finer woods by definition are old growth. Old growth means old trees. Old trees give shade and beauty to many generation. When old trees are allowed to live most of their life, when they are finally harvested, it goes to the best of the best artisans who immortalize that beauty. If old growth goes away, true artisans go away. We try to acquire our materials from renewable sources and from reclaimed sources. Examples of renewable sources include:
Examples of reclaimed sources include:
Reclaimed sources mean lots of extra work for us, but if it means we save some really awesome wood while leaving old growth for future artisans, it's well worth it. Shellac- The All Natural, Biodegradable, Time Tested Finish We use only Shellac based polishes for our urn finishes for two reasons:
"So", you ask, "what makes shellac so great and why is it biodegradable?" Shellac, properly used, dries hard and shines brilliantly and that makes it a great finish. Our brand of preference is Shellawax; a recipe of shellac, alcohol, and carnauba wax. U-Beat Polishes formulated it for application to the work piece while it spins on the lathe. It first soaks into the wood and then as friction builds up, it cooks the formula into a rock hard, high sheen shell. It is biodegradable because it is made out of organic material; primarily tree sap that is digested and processed by The Lac Insect Laccifer lacca The beauty of the harvesting process is that it makes no environmental impact. It is in fact rather symbiotic because the harvesters take measures to make sure trees that otherwise left alone would die from depletion, survive. Because these beetles occur naturally, and abundantly, there is no need for plantations. Follow the numbered pictures to see how it works. What We Do With the Waste From Making Cremation Urns Turning Cremation Urns especially when each one is one of a kind, creates enormous amounts of shavings. Much of our stock comes thickly coated with carnauba wax. We use alcohol in the drying process of our woods. We judiciously select organic materials to use for the express purpose of recyclability. Even as waste, nearly all of our materials are biodegradable and are therefore candidates for heating our shop. Using the organic material, we convert our shavings and cutoffs into very efficient starter logs much like you buy at your favorite camping store. The result is very efficient heat that leaves very little ash while what gets hauled away is no more than household rubbish. The general rule of thumb that we go by, putting tastiness and a possible tummy ache aside is if you can eat it, you can burn it. If it is an inorganic material we do not use it for our logs and dispose of it according to local regulations. This takes a little extra work, but it is our small way of rebelling against the oil cartels while curtailing our contributing to the landfills. Since we are small, and while we are small, with every new growth ring of our business we can make sure that it all dovetails together and stays that way. In the meantime, you can rest easy knowing that we endeavor to keep it clean. Sincerely,
Jacob Sutherland Contact us: info@jcscarpentry.com or call now: (781) 492-6249 Located in Leominster, MA
JCS Carpentry accepts AMEX, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa. Massachusetts H.I.C. # 148850 Copyright© 2005 JCS Carpentry- All rights reserved
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The Lac Insect
attaches to the -----Tree when it is young and injects a feeding tube
(proboscis) that extracts sap. Once it starts to feed, the female Lac
bug remains fixed in the same spot for life amongst a colony of fellow Lac bugs
where they mate with the male Lac bug 
Adult Male Lac Beetle
When
the males mature into Lac Beetles, they fly away.
When the female Lac bugs lay eggs and die, the shell is at maximum size and is harvested.