aka  MOTOR AGATE.....

Greetings! My name is Cindy, and I run the eBay Store: Urban Relic Design. We have had a happy and long history with this unique material, and are dedicated to providing designers and collectors with fine and collectible Fordite cabochons for use in jewelry.

"What is Fordite?" You may ask. Vintage Fordite is a multi-layered automotive enamel material, with a very interesting history. The original leftover paint slag, or “rough” was made incidentally, years ago, by the old fashioned industrial techniques used to spray-paint multiples of production cars in large auto factories.

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"How was it created?" From the personal accounts of retired factory workers, it was said to have been made like this: The oversprayed enamels in the painting bays gradually compiled over and over again, on the tracks and skids that the car frames were painted on. Over time, many colorful layers built up there. These layers were hardened repeatedly in the ovens that the car bodies went into to cure the paint. Some of these deeper layers were even baked 100 times. Eventually, the paint build-up would become obstructing, or too thick and heavy, and had to be removed.

As the story goes, some crafty workers with an eye for beauty realized that this unique byproduct was thick enough to make some use of. It was super-cured, patterned like pychedelic agate, and could be cut and polished with relative ease! Wow!

“RECYCLE IT!” seemed to be the resounding sentiment. And so it was...
As word got around about this remarkable material, it's been said that rock hounds started showing up at auto factories, offering to help remove that problematic paint!

Sadly, the techniques that produced this great rough years ago, are no longer in practice. Cars are now painted by way of an electrostatic process that essentially magnetizes the enamels to the car bodies. This leaves little, or no overspray. The old factory methods that produced this incredible material are long gone.

The Fordite “mines” are dry, so get some while you still can!

Come and visit our Urban Relic Design ebay store to see more Fordite cabochons: http://stores.ebay.com/Urban-Relic-Design

Fordite Information courtesy of: