Linotype or monotype?

[Joe88XJ]

Can anybody tell me how to tell linotype from monotype....I just score 50 lbs of this....

[Dusty Bannister]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...To-Be-Linotype

[Joe88XJ]

I was under the impression that linotype was multiple characters on a single piece and monotype was individual characters ...the difference being mono is harder because it was made to be re used over and over again. Picture in that thread looks like monotype to me based on what I have found searching.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I once scored a nearly full 5 gal. pail of just letters like yours for free, it turned out to be Monotype from a closed hospital print shopRobert

[bangerjim]

Linotype........."line-of-type"......litteraly! Simple. And rather modern (pre computer-set printing).

Foundry type........single letters/numbers/charcters with a notch on the bottom side

Monotype......same as above except no notch. Harder than both above.

Mono and foundry types are almost considered antiques today. Used in rotary platten printing presses with movable type, they were kept in those big drawers with all the little compartments you see in flea markets and antique stores.

I have almost 700# of it that goes with my antquque (1870's) printing presses and hot foil stamping machines. All in drawers by order so the letters and figures are easy to find. A person called a "printer's devil" was responsible for picking, setting, and replacing the type in the drawers after the page was printed.

Good for sweetening your pure.

bangerjim

[el34]

Monotype. Absolutely great for hardening pure lead and adding tin.

Mono hardness is 30BHN and has 10% tin.

10lb of pure lead and 2.5lb of mono = a casting alloy of 10BHN hardness and 2.0% tin.
10lb of pure lead and 3.2lb of mono = a casting alloy of 11BHN hardness and 2.4% tin.
10lb of pure lead and 3.9lb of mono = a casting alloy of 12BHN hardness and 2.8% tin.

[RogerDat]

Linotype is comes in thin strips with the printing on the edge, whole words and parts of sentences. Machines cast the strips with the text entered by operators at a keyboard. Nearly real time. The strips then went on edge into trays in order. Used for "modern" newspapers printing.

After printing the paper the lead strips were re-melted and cast into heavy bars to be used again the next day. Linotype pigs are those bars of linotype with a hole at one end to allow hooking them and feeding into the pot of molten lead that fed the type machine.

The tin and antimony would get depleted from the repeated melting, printing as type and re-melting. So the pigs required refreshing of those alloys from time to time. This means that linotype (bar or type strips) will have some variation in the alloy. And as others have pointed out the alloy only had to be hard enough to print crisp text for one days printing.

Those individual letters you picture being intended be reused to print a "4" or "U" every single time you wanted to print that character had to be hard enough to hold up for years of printing. Really hard alloy with lots of antimony and good amount of tin. Not re-melted repeatedly so alloy not depleted.

In short you have a really, really good alloy and a great score.

[Joe88XJ]

Thanks guys for all the good info!

[454PB]

Here's a picture featuring some of each ......

[facetious]

Here is a good link for info on type metals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_metal