Fordite Pendant with Silver and White Bone

A unique "Fordite" or "Dagenham Agate" pendant.  This cabochon has been cut from layers of compressed car paint.  This material is then encapsulated in resin to make it hard wearing. 

Fordite is a unique automotive enamel material, with an interesting history. The original layered automotive paint slag "rough" was made incidentally, years ago, by the now extinct practice of hand spray-painting multiples of production cars in big automotive factories.The oversprayed paint in the painting bays gradually built up 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 realised that this unique byproduct was worth salvaging. It was super-cured, patterned like psychedelic agate, and could be cut and polished with relative ease! Wow!

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 created this incredible material are long gone.

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

I handcrafted a frame around the piece of fordite using sterling silver wire (over 22 feet of it!). This gorgeously different piece also features white bone beads & old silver tubes (Fair Trade from Africa) and stunning Karen Hill Tribes fine silver (.999) beads (Fair Trade from Thailand) - tiny faceted silver beads, cones and polished rounds which are all handcrafted by the Thai villagers.

This one-off art piece is finished with a sterling silver engraved 'Ginga Squid' heart on the reverse.

A chain is not included but can be purchased from my Chains Page - or you can use you own.

Length (from top of bail): 60mm

Width: 45mm