Yahoo Autos Ford Uses 200,000 Pounds of Clay Every Year
Modeling clay was introduced to the car industry in the late twenties by GM's Harley Earl, and while today's designers have such advanced tools as CAD and rapid prototyping, carmakers still rely on clay when it comes to building their full-sized models. Ford says "computers tend to have a more single user work flow, where clay models tend to be much more collaborative. Everybody can see and explore possibilities together with a better chance of developing a great-looking model."
As a result, they use up to 200,000 lbs. of the stuff every year, which isn't even the clay you might be familiar with. Instead, it's primarily a combination of waxes and oil with filler, and does not contain water like traditional ceramic clay does. Or whale blubber, like it used to in the olden days.
At this point, you might be thinking that Ford has been recycling this material just like children do with Play Doh, but apparently, that's only been the case for the last five years. During this time though, the company managed to recover and reprocess more than 20,000 lbs. That comes handy, considering that the full-size model of the Raptor was composed of 1935 lbs. of clay – and 20,000 hours of work.
The method is relatively simple. Once gathered, Ford's machine compresses and churns the clay chips with multiple blades, sucking all the air out in the process. The clay is then passed through a nozzle that's heated just enough to churn it out with the proper consistency so that it can be reused:
Next, they should introduce more colors.
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