MTFCA Forum

Most have heard of the manufacture of the soybean based coils in the late teens. Think of the trees saved way back then( if hungry mice wouldn’t have made them impractical) I had a bunch of these NOS wiring blocks,likely made at the same time. This is the only one I saved. What else did FoMoCo make out of the soybean plastics? I’m thinking horn buttons, for one. Share examples if you have them.

I believe the material was called "Fordite" and was used extensively for knobs, electrical items, some small body parts, and steering wheel rims. I think it was used as late as about 1968 for steering wheels in pickups. By 1971, the pickup steering wheels were made of some type of colored plastic. The earlier ones were painted various colors, but were a dull black under the paint with a slightly grainy texture. I seem to remember that Ford made a car with the entire body made of Fordite, but I don't think Fordite ever used for major parts like doors or fenders in production.

The terminal block is another part made of Fordite. I also recall there were some experiments with body panels which never actually put into production.

Fordite is a completely different thing. Fordite is also called “Detroit agate” and was made by polishing hunks of paint chipped off the auto painting machinery. The chunks were polished and made into jewelry and other items. Totally different animal.

I looked up an old thread, and Ron Patterson called them soybean/asbestos composition and then wheat gluten/asbestos composition. So, I’m not sure what they are made of. You can see strands of white fibers which I assume is the asbestos. I don’t care right now to take a taste test. But again, Fordite they are not. They would be very pretty if they were.

Kind of rushed tonight but found an old thread that talks about fordite used in the T era. As I’m never afraid to say ( honey) I was wrong.

It seems they used plant fiber, and probably used whatever was available in quantity, be it soybean stalks or whatever else might suit the process.

Finishing operation of the Fordite steering wheel rims, that is what gave these rims the high polish. Pretty strong stuff, they have lasted decades.

These photos show a steering wheel my daughter recently cleaned up for me. The edge shows the Fordite composition. The other photo is the same wheel before removing from the weathered chassis.

Ford built an experimental car in 1941. It was made of Soybeans and phenolic resin, although no record of the actual composition of the plastic has survived. This car was not a 1941 Ford that happened to be made of plastic - it was a totally different car.

I don’t know the source or the truth to the small clipping I posted, but the author states about 45 T parts were made from this early fordite. So, 1) coil cases ………2) firewall junction block……..3) horn button………4) steering wheel rim……….

5) terminal plate in ignition switch

An interesting article on the 1941 “soybean” car.
https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/the ... ybean-car/

Tim Morsher
The coil depicted in your lead in post on this subject and referrred to as the soybean coil is actually documented in Ford engineering drawings as the "cast design" and made from wheat gluten with asbestos fibers as a binder. I beleive that is different than the later "Fordite" discussed here. The cast design coil was used during 1916/1917 Model T production probably as a experimental trial to replace the brass metal top coils whose demise was necissitated by World War II. Engineering drawings indicate cast coil design was soon abandon becasue it was "found to be dimensiuonally unstable".
All Model T Ford ignition coils after that time were made of "hard Maple" wood.

As far as the items already mentioned made from Fordite what about battery cases, head and tailight connectors, generator and starter insulators or were these items made of something else.