Jim Smith
Member
My recent back surgery has kept me out of the shop, but I finally got a chance to turn a couple of pens today to finish up a post-Christmas order. This is a pen I made from a material called Fordite. This material is actually dried paint from the auto factories where they paint an automobile, cure the paint with heat, then roll in another car that may be painted in a different color. Back in the 1970s, workers at the Ford plant in Detroit decided to "harvest" some of this material to see if they could make anything out of it. Once it got out, some "gemologist" examined it and gave it the official name of Fordite. This particular piece was actually from the Chevy Stingray plant in Bowling Green KY. I got it from a guy over on a pen making page on FB. It makes very pretty pens, with a cool background story, but it can be a pain to work with. For one thing, it never gets too big (usually 5/8" thick with some very hard to find pieces being 3/4" thick). I also has a tendency to want to delaminate between layers of paint if you're not careful, and finally, since it is paint, I always wear a good respirator when working with it. To avoid the delamination, I simply sand down the corners, then use Abranet 240 to sand it to size. I alway wet sand it to avoid the dust from this material. Once it's the correct size, it like any acrylic and finishes up very nicely. Sorry for the poor quality photo, but I thought I'd share it here in case anyone has not seen this material before.
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