New FORDITE cabs and beads!

Hi folks! It's been a bit of a crazy summer but I'm keeping going!

I have SOOOOO many things started and so few finished! Finally here are pics of the "Fordite" that I've been working on. I'm taking a break from stocking my Etsy store and I'm still putting the majority of things in my eBay store. I'm really frustrated with having two store fronts and not sure how to handle the on line marketing of my work. I fired my "Trading Assistant" who had been doing my photography and listing for 6 months because he was just making too many mistakes and not taking decent quality images, so I'm back to working alone and doing everything myself.

There are totally varying kinds and qualities of fordite out there. "Fordite" is the common name for the overspray from the paint booths of old car factories. It originally came from Ford factories but the name has come to mean any recycled paint overspray. In the 1980's manufacturers switched to electrostatic sprays so there was no overspray, so it's VERY hard to come by! Here are some fordite cabs that I'll be listing tomorrow. The middle and two small ones on the right are original stock and the two on the left are "unbaked" more contemporary fordite from an unknown source. The "original stock" which is stuff that I collected in the 70's certainly came from old car factories whereas there is some kind of more recent to contemporary fordite that is "unbaked" and not as hard, brittle, and shiny as the old stuff. The more recent stuff does seem to show up in much larger chunks so I can do a little bit more creative things with it. I never really had access to any pieces of the "Classic" stuff that was big enough or stable enough to make beads. Here is my last piece of big rough of the more contemporary fordite....and here are some beads that I made out of this material....

I already sold the two smaller ones to a collector in Britain but the two larger ones are in my eBay store. I am 95% certain that the major seller of "faceted" fordite on eBay is using this rough material. I know he's having his faceting done in the Far East as I talked to him in Tucson.

I still actually really, really like working with the even more rare "boat paintite" variety of fordite. This is overspray of marine quality paint and it's very strong and takes a great polish! Here are some images of my "boat paintite"....

I'll be taking most of my inventory of beads with me away to a show in the middle of this week but I'll try and leave the cabs up in my eBay store. I'll probably have to put my Etsy store on vacation settings so I don't sell anything twice while I'm away, so if something is calling to you, better jump on it! I'll post more next week when I get back from my show and vacation. Thanks for looking everyone!