RE: [ihc] Interesting mineral with an automotive history link

["Jim Grammer" <jgrammer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>----Original Message-----
>From: John Hofstetter
>Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 6:25 PM
>To: ihc@domain.elided digest
>Subject: [ihc] Interesting mineral with an automotive history link

>While we camped in Lovelock, NV a couple of weeks ago, we saw quite a
>number of samples of Dumorterite, a mineral mined in the Lovelock area
>until 1929 by Champion, the maker of spark plugs. The Dumorterite was
>used to make the insulators for the Champion spark plugs.

Interesting, never really thought about how the heck they make plug
insulators. At one point:

"insulators were made from andalusite, sillimanite and dumortierite "

This looks to be the mine:

http://www.mindat.org/loc-3925.html

Champion(IH OEM) appears to have been seriously vertically integrated, raw
material to finished production. They had a plant in Toledo, OH to process
the raw minerals.

Jim