Hemp powered, Hemp made

Hemp yields 4 times as much pulp as trees but in one season as opposed to a decade of harvesting pulp from trees, hemp paper needs no dioxins, and hemp needs no pesticides for growing? Henry Ford made the bodies for a fleet of cars out of hemp composite and the cars were 10 times stronger than steel? Here's Henry Ford demonstrating:
[youtube]54vD_cPCQM8[/youtube]
I mean what? And why not now?

Henry Ford did some good things but he was a rabid anti-semite.

I'm sure there would be a market for surfboards made from hemp if they were pier proof.

Interesting technology, but unfortunately Henry Ford used ditch weed in early iterations.
Tech was later improved, and reached culmination in the Tijuana factory shown
in "Up In Smoke", the classic 1978 documentary of cannabis builds.

The video is fiction. Henry Ford used SOYBEANS from his own farm to make bioplastic for his car, to experiment with fuel, etc., meeting with less success than we'd be led to believe. Note that the guy with the axe with beating on a just plain different car, NOT the alledged hemp car. A fairly tough experimental trunk panel they beat on, but it's showing it.

Henry Ford was one of the originators of the "Road Trip." Starting in 1915, he'd back up his MODEL T, pick up Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone,John Burroughs, plus sometimes other notables, then head for the country. (Often additional cars, even Packards, for "Millions of Dollars in Brains on vacation.") He loved farms, as well as farmers. He would tell the story of one trip where a farmers' truck broke down and even though it was a competitors product he grabbed his tools and got it running again. He declined the money the farmer offered him, saying he had plenty. To which the farmer responded. "I might believe that if you weren't driving a FORD." Of course if it's a true story he takes it as a compliment, right?

So the whole soybean car/soybean fuel project is about helping the American farmer, trying to develop renewable resources not because he was a visionary who saw we'd run out some day, but because it's just the way he was.

His Dearborn newspaper certainly got crazy, but he closed it when he was confronted with its' contents. It's a strange story, him saying he didn't read the articles, even the column they ran with his name on it that he never wrote. The staff said they never heard from him relating to the content, that he ever did write his alleged column. So perhaps it was true that he WAS shocked with the sheer virulence of his own paper in its' attack on Jews. Not that he wasn't on record in his distrust of them. . . .

I'd love to find out if it's true that he sent Adolf Hitler an expensive birthday present every year, until the war started. He was vocal in his support. But like the hemp car story, wild tales take on a life of their own.

I'm not sure when the hemp myth first surfaced, one might guess it's one of so many that popped up because of the internet, as with so many Einstein and Franklin quotes that they never said. But I sort of lean towards it coming from the 70's.

Oh, Levi's were never made from hemp. They were made from dungaree. Hence calling jeans 'Dungaree.'

Many myths on the internet, but you can make some good things from hemp fiber, or hemp oil. Hemp varieties have such low THC content, people getting loose with it and smoking it would get high, but not very high. It does make sense to grow it for industrial uses, particularly on lower quality dry land farmland that cannot grow other crops.

But, the problem is every farmer would be smart enough to hide some indica variety in that sea of hemp in the field. How would they ever catch em if allowed to grow 500 acres of hemp? That acre of one toke does it indica would retail for about 1000 times the value of hemp.

Living in Iowa forces commercial growing in your face and even non-farmers pick up on a few facts. There's only so much cultivation any given plot of land can sustain, unassisted. Farming has gone from relying on biological processes in the soil to now using soil as a substrate for fertilizer, similar to hydroponic. There's nothing magic about the industrial value of hemp. Hemp is just another of many crops that can be processed into various commodity components.



Anyone care to speculate what will happen if we quit irrigating with cheap oil?

dogman said:

Hemp varieties have such low THC content, people getting loose with it and smoking it would get high, but not very high.

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Plus, it tastes like rope.

The fingers said:

dogman said:

Hemp varieties have such low THC content, people getting loose with it and smoking it would get high, but not very high.

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Plus, it tastes like rope.

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And how would you know what rope tastes like, hmmm? :lol: As anybody who grew up in Iowa can tell you, ditchweed won't get you high one bit, its only good for headache. Although I've heard of a clandestine cross pollination effort going on by the DEA, in order to justify their budget.

gogo said:

Living in Iowa forces commercial growing in your face and even non-farmers pick up on a few facts. There's only so much cultivation any given plot of land can sustain, unassisted. Farming has gone from relying on biological processes in the soil to now using soil as a substrate for fertilizer, similar to hydroponic. There's nothing magic about the industrial value of hemp. Hemp is just another of many crops that can be processed into various commodity components.

Anyone care to speculate what will happen if we quit irrigating with cheap oil?

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So much truth in this. +1.

+1 thanks to all posting interesting comments and correcting me on the myth of hemp made cars. Like Ford, I really like the idea of supporting farming in my own country, preserving biodiversity, native species, practice and industry. Seems that more Americans now support legalization than don't, so maybe the hemp farmers will see their wishes come true soon.

mattrb said:

Henry Ford did some good things but he was a rabid anti-semite.

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Achievement unlocked: race card pulled out in record time...

You should see Hearst castle some time. It's the kind of thing you are able to build when you, as a newspaper publisher and forester, can crush competition by using government & your media powers to demonize it ( hemp ).

I wonder how many trees would still be around if Randolph Hearst hadn't got his way.

Ford was an amazing guy. Nature only provides us a limited amount of people like him. Despite being a racist, you can't discount his achievements or forward-looking attitude. Too bad govt/industrial fascism crushed a lot of things that he wanted to do. I think that we will see a resurgence of his ideas when the natural gas and oil wells run dry.

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/07/bioplastic-scooter/
"Less common is a body made of hemp and flax fibers that have been impregnated with a biologically derived resin. "

neptronix said:

Ford was an amazing guy. Nature only provides us a limited amount of people like him. Despite being a racist, you can't discount his achievements or forward-looking attitude. Too bad govt/industrial fascism crushed a lot of things that he wanted to do. I think that we will see a resurgence of his ideas when the natural gas and oil wells run dry.

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That can be said of many of the worst dictators of the 20th century. I hope it is not prophetic. I fear you may be correct.

Henry Ford was amazing.
The younger Henry Ford was a true mechanical genius.
The younger Henry Ford sought real improvements for his workers' social condition.

The older Henry Ford was a fervent Jew hater, and an ardent supporter of Adolf Hitler (Ford received the Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle) .
Old Henry was amazingly ignorant of any real academics, and was horribly embarrassed in a court trial when he couldn't answer basic questions commonly known to the average elementary schoolchild.
Old Henry had press agents create false myths about his entrepreneurial prowess (example: Ransom Eli Olds invented the automotive assembly line, not Henry Ford)
Old Henry became a rotten, despicable, parent to his son Edsel, and a total dictator and tyrant to his workforce.
Old Henry employed spies and company police to constantly control most aspects of his workers lives. He was the embodiment and definition of an industrial fascist.
If old Henry Ford could have used hemp to build a car, he would have sought total world dominance of the crop (example: Fordlandia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlândia

Henry Ford was a true enigma of a man. I find it amazing to see where he started out in life, and how he finished it.
Electric cars? ---> http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/05/25/henry-ford-and-the-electric-car/
Organic materials for car bodies ? ---> http://www.thehenryford.org/research/soybeancar.aspx
The "Hemp myth" likely arose from a misconstruction of Fords' attempt to produce ethyl alcohol fuels. http://www.environmentalhistory.org...charles-kettering-and-the-fuel-of-the-future/

sk8norcal said:

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/07/bioplastic-scooter/
"Less common is a body made of hemp and flax fibers that have been impregnated with a biologically derived resin. "

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That is way cool - everything from design to manufacturing to its Be.eKeepers business plan.

Kind of interesting...
over past year or so, there has been some cool stuff done with hemp and bike frames.
Specifically, bamboo frames / hemp "bindings".
Turns out that bamboo frames + carbon fiber bindings don't work out so well...
different coefficient of expansion / contraction to blame?
But bamboo + hemp fiber seems to be an answer to the problem.

I've been thinking of building a bamboo frame for a while.
Have some bamboo curing in the garage.
If I ever get around to it, will probably use hemp binding.

Ditchweed doesn't smoke worth a dang, but it seems to have other worthwhile properties.

Google these terms for info: Bicycle Bamboo Hemp

There are basically two myths about Henry Ford: One is the larger than life myth of all the great things he did, the other is the larger than life myth of all the BAD things he did. It's a myth that many people even believe he invented the assembly line, but basically he really is the one who first made it work. He definitely did it better than Olds ever did. "Old" Henry Ford started suffering strokes in his 50's and was a tottering fool when questioned in court.

There is no question that, while Ford did not create the concept of 'Capitalist Welfare' or 'Socialist Capitalism' as it's sometimes called, he is the one who made it common in early 20th century America. Yet at the same time there was a price to be paid for working at the company with the highest pay, the most benefits, etc. Ford was quite a moralist with high standards, you were expected to live up to those standards. In return you made more than twice what people doing the same work for other companies were making. If you wanted to join his revolutionary profit sharing plan, you had to pass a background check; Basically like any good socialist, Ford had his own "Uprava". One thing that blackballed you from it was if you weren't paying your child support. Another thing started by Ford was the 40 hour work week, at a time when working twice that was common.

It's so funny that Adolf Hitler was indeed trying to emulate Henry Ford throughout German industry to the point where they regularly tried to explain that the Nazi's were the socialists who didn't hate capitalists, but in fact WERE capitalists. (Kind of like China now.) Where he first parted company with Hitler was when the shooting actually started: Ford was rabidly antiwar. (Blaming those danged financiers again.) The Ford Uprava went so far as to send a peace mission to Europe when the First World War broke out. 'The New York Times' dubbed the mission 'The Ship of Fools' and called instead for Germany to take possession of Belgium and part of France to bring peace. Denouncing warfare as indeed the playground of the financier, Ford expressed his antiwar sentiments as his factories in France and Germany were using slave labor to build German war supplies. I guess you can make an excuse for holding an opinion either way on that one.

From what I've read Edsel Ford didn't have it nearly so bad, there are just people who obsess over attacking the Father and use the son as the grist for their mill. There's even a story circulated that Henry caused Edsel's death, though Edsel died of advanced cancer that had destroyed his internal organs and an ongoing fever. Meanwhile, so much of Ford's opposition to anyone he considered a "Financier" (Ford wouldn't allow the creation of in house financing of cars until Edsel simply pushed it through) gets twisted into an issue of JEWISH financiers. His reaction to the Universal Credit Corporation his son gave him was to sell it.

So Ford makes a great figure to vilify, but beware the myths, Model T's were not all black or even available in black every year. As Ford continued to warn of union leaders fostering discord to built their own power and preventing productivity to force more employment, the union mouths went on the warpath, yet Ford ultimately gave the UAW best terms ever because he already was the best employer. I'd certainly rather have worked for him than for his employer of nearly a decade, Thomas Edison.

But it's not enough to be the inspiration from the fictional character Hank Rearden in 'Atlas Shrugged,' who, for the first time, made being a successful businessman 'Sexy' in the eyes of reviewers and readers. If you're going to be Henry Ford, you just gotta be perfect or there's people who'll make it their business to hate you. Being larger than life, even larger than the larger than life myths they create, just isn't enough.

Like many people, Ford had some good ideas, and some bad ideas. Being Ford, he had the cash to implement some of his bad ones. He never understood what it must be like to have to live to somebodies list of morals to keep your job and company house. To Ford it came natural, but to his workers it was not always so easy to live by the company rule book.

Not that Ford was the only American who had some funny ideas in the 20's, late 30's. Racists of all types were common, who do you think the Germans learned their step one of the final solution from? (mandatory sterilization) It was American doctors in mental hospitals that showed the way.

Lots of people who weren't racists believed Hitlers early lies. Some just already agreed with Hitlers racisim. Hopefully we continue to outgrow that shit, but it's a job that isn't finished yet. There's an ugly residue of it in me that's hard to scrub away completely.

Farming with the water turned off? That sounds like the Rio Grande the last 10 years. Please go to southern Colorado and take a piss so we can have a drink.

I remember reading in several places that some of the benefits of hemp were that it could be grown in marginal land, instead of switching good corn/wheat farming land to hemp. Another benefit was that it doesn't take as much water to grow hemp as it does to grow soybeans. I'm told that any vegetable oil can be polymerized into a resin.

The DE Havilland Mosquito was reluctantly accepted into production during WWII, because it produced a usable aircraft while using very few critical materials. Turns out that this wooden aircraft performed fantastically. The 1955 Corvette was considered quite exotic at the time with its fiberglass body, but now...composite bodies (or even just sections of the body) are common.

Perhaps once the recreational market for "glaucoma medication" is satisfied in Colorado and Washington, some enterprising farmer will try a crop of oil/fiber hemp?...

Using hemp, or some other organic fiber (or material) is an interesting concept for structural (or decorative) panels in electric vehicles.
The current flavor in reduction of body weight to compensate for battery weight seems to be a wishfull thinking use of battery infused carbon fiber --->http://www.gizmag.com/volvo-battery-infused-structural-components/29437/
A "bent plywood" made from hemp plywood could be a feasible alternative to typical metal tubular frame construction. Hemp plywood can be superior to ordinary plywood.
Morgan automobiles use woodframes, why not hemp plywood frames?
Bonobo style bikes,but in hemp plywood? http://www.cycleexif.com/bonobo-plywood-bicycle


On Henry Ford --- he was a genius at attempting to control the total supply of parts and materials to build his automobiles. He was obsessed by total self sufficiency. Ford's River Rouge Complex is the prime example of locating assembly near a power and material source to centralize production and reduce (or control) cost. http://www.thehenryford.org/rouge/historyofrouge.aspx

An electric vehicle manufactured near a hemp source, that's also a battery & motor source, with cheap local labor would tickle the ghost of Henry Ford . Therefore Chinese hemp would seem a natural progression for that idea.

Dauntless said:

There are basically two myths about Henry Ford: One is the larger than life myth of all the great things he did, the other is the larger than life myth of all the BAD things he did ..... Being larger than life, even larger than the larger than life myths they create, just isn't enough.

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@Dauntless , good analysis. I agree with most of it. But I have a slightly different perspective.
Old Henry and Edsel were long-gone worm food, and the effect of the Whiz Kids was still in the air . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_(Ford). Many old timers said that Edsel should have truly taken the helm of Ford Motor Co, but his aging tyrannical father insisted on manipulating him and diabolically demanding total control of the company.
It is one thing to read or study the "assembly line" methods of Ford, and very different to work it 8-10 hours a day. Every minute a mere meat robot. Every detail of their movements had been analyzed by efficiency experts. They received a good wage. If they didn't they would have been stupid or ultra-desperate to do that hard, fast, and monotonous work. It is a hell of a lot harder than it looks. It is very dehumanizing labor. Another brick in the wall, totally controlled.

The lesson to the young aspiring electric vehicle entrepreneur, or investor, is an age old warning. When picking role models, or e-saints, whether it's a Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Elon Musk ... well regardless of how brilliant and amazing they appear they are very human and thus suffer from human frailties. They get old and sometimes they can dramatically shift on where they re-draw the line on their perceived burden to other humans. The definition of a business was once described to me as it exist solely " to make money for its owners and investors". The pursuit of business rarely makes saints, it can make arseholes of idealist ... it is truly to make money $$$$.

gogo said:

The fingers said:

dogman said:

Hemp varieties have such low THC content, people getting loose with it and smoking it would get high, but not very high.

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Plus, it tastes like rope.

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And how would you know what rope tastes like, hmmm? :lol: As anybody who grew up in Iowa can tell you, ditchweed won't get you high one bit, its only good for headache. Although I've heard of a clandestine cross pollination effort going on by the DEA, in order to justify their budget.

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It's worse than cornsilk. :lol:

FeralDog said:

I agree with most of it. But I have a slightly different perspective.

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I don't see where you're really saying anything different from me. There were extreme things being said I wanted to counterbalance, Ford was hardly the monster some people are determined to characterize him as. I'm a serious history nut, Sometimes it really bugs me what people so "Knowingly" insist.

Automobile writer Verlon Braden lived next door to me before he died, (I took some of the pictures in his books) he talked about his father working at Ford. He called it a career that demanded a lot to give you a lot, you have to be sure you really want that going in. He said it left his father too tired to do much fishing, which he'd really liked to have been doing.

So I studied Television at a community college, most of my classmates were older than me as most people don't seem to make a move to get started in broadcasting as a teenager. One in particular wound up working at Hughes Aircraft in a plant right in town by the school. So there I was about 25 with a B.A. and working in the field when I see him going back to school at around 30 to get a B.A. and take another shot at it. But he wasn't ready to give up the security of his assembly line job until he was offered the chance to do as well in Television. I told him it would take years and luck to get where he was at, he just said he'd say otherwise. Shortly after I when to work at a cable network making more than he was, during that time they closed the plant where he worked. I was mostly a freelancer working all over, I never came across him working in Television. For all my talk of wishing I'd gotten into something more stable than TV, I sure don't mean factory work.

I've had a few places trying to interest me in working with carbon fiber in jobs running 15% overtime, meaning 3 Saturdays a month, but all I can see is a job that would own me until one day I don't have it anymore. Right now I've made a fulltime job of this precalculus class I'm taking, the grindstone of 30 hours a week in the math lab with tutors and more time at home and still getting a 'D'. But if I somehow learn to do math it just seems the prospects are better. Now, if I NEEDED fulltime work right now I'd make a beeline to it. But for my sporatic work and some residuals and investments, I think I'll hold out.

Meanwhile, I can imagine how tough it must be to have your Dad looking over your shoulder on everything, especially a tough one like Henry Ford. But I remember Dodger Reggie Smith talking about how well he batted under pressure: "Pressure? There's no pressure here. Pressure is a wife, 4 kids and a car payment on $185 a week." It's just that when I read anything that's nonsensationalizing about Edsel Ford, it simply sounds like his then demented dad, who only stepped aside because of some strokes, was often trying, but something always is when you're on top. If Henry Ford stayed on the job to the age that Commodore Vanderbilt stayed on, Edsel would never have had the chance to run the company before he died.

When Vanderbilt (Another unfairly maligned success) did finally give his (Literally) son/nephew William a chance, the boy did his father/uncle proud. The only one of the sibling/cousins to work for the rail, he about doubled the family fortune in 9 years. No way of knowing if Edsel was capable of anything like that. There were no other siblings, cousins or not.

Dads, cars, work, life! Pretty much sums up the state of affaris for most of us. I was about 5 years old before I became aware of the parameters that would thence control pretty much all the important stuff. It was when I realized dad went away every morning to go to "work" and that eventually I would have to too. Latter, I learned that my dad's first job was at the Studebaker factory in South Bend and that's why our family had a Studebaker to drive:

.. and that driving was something families needed to do. I remember days waiting at the front window of our little ticky-tackey house, the suburban dream of post-war veterans and their wives, waiting for my dad to come home in that Studebaker. It'd roll into the driveway and my Harriet-like mom would come give him a sweet little kiss, and then we'd spend some family time before eating dinner. Those were the best of days.

He & mom were in South Bend as dad completed his degree in Chemical Engineering at Notre Dame. So factory work in the off-hours, as those factories rolled 24-7, punching out little ticky-tackey cars into the American post-war boom time economy.

Those were the best of days, before school started and I was rolled off into the American educational factory system, just another cog in the machine...
[youtube]wENE7O-Y6ME[/youtube]
... and so it goes, on and on and you just have to wonder when and how it will ever stop.

Some interesting notes about Studebaker

• Studebaker entered the automotive business in 1902 with electric vehicles and in 1904 with gasoline vehicles, all sold under the name "Studebaker Automobile Company"
• Over the next 50 years, the company established an enviable reputation for quality and reliability. After years of trouble the company merged with a fellow company to form Studebaker-Packard Corporation
• The South Bend plant ceased production on December 20, 1963, and the last Studebaker automobile rolled off the Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, assembly line on March 16, 1966.
• In 1889, incoming President Harrison ordered a full set of Studebaker carriages and harnesses for the White House. As the twentieth century approached, the South Bend plant "covered nearly 100 acres (0.40 km2) with 20 big boilers, 16 dynamos, 16 large stationary engines, 1000 pulleys, 600 wood- and iron-working machines, 7 miles (11 km) of belting, dozens of steam pumps, and 500 arc and incandescent lamps making white light over all".
• At first, Studebaker opted for electric (battery-powered) over gasoline propulsion... manufacturing its own Studebaker Electric vehicles from 1902 to 1911,
• During World War II, Studebaker produced the Studebaker US6 truck in great quantity and the unique M29 Weasel cargo and personnel carrier. Studebaker ranked 28th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.[21] After cessation of hostilities, Studebaker returned to building automobiles that appealed to average Americans.
• slogan - First by far with a post-war car.

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If you are only going off a blogspot blog to discredit hemp as being what the car was made of you might want to do more research.