FINALLY........ today was my day

[klutz347]

Last weekend I stopped at the recycling center (as I have every weekend I'm able to) and asked if they had any lead. I got the same answer I've gotten the past 8-9 times I've been there, "Just a few wheel weights and some dive weights". I would buy what they had and chalk it up to "Well, I got something for my efforts".

Well today, While driving home from the dentist's office (thats a whole story in itself), I thought I would make a turn and drive by the center just to check.

When I walked in Nick (the yard guy that I've talked to every time I've gone there) smiled and said that he hoped I would come in soon.

I asked him what, he had. He walked me over to a small bin and said that he was unofficially "Holding" it for me.

I looked in and I was smiling from ear to ear. He said that someone dropped it off about 1/2 hour after I left last weekend and he couldn't find my phone number to call me back.

Well I only had 2 buckets in my car so I wasn't able to get all of it but I filled them until the handles broke under the weight.

Not bad I thought 77 lbs for $17 plus the 1/2 gallon of gas for going out of my way to the center.

[largecaliberman]

KLUTZ347:
Go easy now-----scrounging for lead can be addictive. I noticed you have dive weights, I would first try to cast boolits with them. I once had a couple of pounds of dive weights assuming they were "pure" lead. Well needless to say, the dive weights I had did not cast well. It was probably mixed with zinc. Just remember, dive weights and boat keel weights are just for weights. Just be weary of the dreaded ZINK. Good luck and have fun.

Oh yes, one more note, if you have a better half, just give her some money to go shopping and to the movies and encourage your better half to stay out as long as possible. However if she is into it also, then your're blessed.

[sheepdog]

Curious, what are the strips with the hollow channels in them? Thats odd looking.

[runfiverun]

not sure on those... but i'd separate those shiny strips out in the upper left corner, those sure pour out light weight shiny boolits that are dang hard,either high tin 15% or linotype. best as i could figure. it melted at 515*

[klutz347]

Curious, what are the strips with the hollow channels in them? Thats odd looking.

I did some looking last night on the strips.

They are spacers used to separate the lines of type on the printing press. They are a bit softer than the lino used in the printing slugs (15-18 BHN) as they don't get the pressures of the printing press.

I'm going to melt a few of them docwn and see how they cast and shoot later today.

[Typecaster]

I doubt the spacer (leading) strips are anything other than lino. The shops I've seen didn't separate all the spacers from the type—it all just got tossed into a heap to be remelted and cast into pigs. Mixing in softer alloy would have diluted the mix. If anything, they could be more pure (lino, not Pb) than the slugs of text as some were purchased from the foundry.

Richard

[deltaenterprizes]

Yup, it's linotype!

[hammerhead357]

The strips with the holes is them are called Elrod strips and they are linotype. The machine that made them was called an Elrod machine or a strip caster. There were other brands of machines that did the same thing. They were neat to watch in action. The machine pulled the strips out of the moulds. That is the reason for the wavey squiggels on the sides of them. It has been about 25 years since I had one and worked with it so my memory is a little fuzzy about it. I was not a printer but had one for a short while and then sold it. Mine had a feeder on it that held a 25 pound lino ingot (called a Pig) and fed it into the pot as needed....Wes

[JKH]

Wes,

I just recently aquired a bunch of mono-type and there was a large amount of very thin space strips. These strips have the same appearance as the OP's with the "squiggely" lines along the side but they are solid and vary from about 1/6" to 1/8" thick.
I thought at first that theses were pure lead but when melting a bunch I was folding them over and they tended to snap at the bend, would/could these be the same hard material as the type?

I cast some into ingots that came out quite shiny, they did shrink down some when cooling but very little and the did not craze, crack or sink in on top like other pure lead I have cast into ingots.

I am just going to use the mono-type to sweeten my wheel weights on occasion, adding a couple ounces to 10 lbs lead, should I try casting these spacer strips as is? I dont have a hardness tester unfortunately so cannot check these myself.

Thanks

Jeff

[hammerhead357]

Jkh I think you will find that the thin spacers are lino just like the ones in the picture. If they are snapping when you bend them then I would consider them lino. IIRC there were various thicknesses of the spacers or Elrod strips.
Be careful using the Monotype to sweeten WW. If you get to much the copper in the Mono will freeze the bottom pour spout of a casting pot. I don't think you will have any problems using a few ounces to 10 lbs though. I used to use about 45% Mono to 55% WW to make Lino. Well maybe it was the other way around. I would have to get out my notes to say for sure. But anyway I would have to freeze out the copper after I had it all alloyed in a big furnace.
The way this was done was after the melt was up to temp. and had been fluxed I would turn the gas off to the furnace and let it cool, after the melt reached a certain temp. I could then skim off the top of the melt and would get most of the copper out. By doing this I could remove enough of the copper to keep it from freezing up in the bottom pour spout of my casting pots.
I hope this makes sense. It has been a long day for me and it is late. I am used to being up this late but I started my day a lot earlier than I normally would have...Wes