What hardness/quality are the thin spacers you get with linotype?

[shotstring]

I just recieved a boxful of mostly those thin spacers that come with assorted linotype. I have one on order, but haven't recieved my hardness tester yet, so I was wondering if anyone here knows if it is the same alloy as regular linotype or something else? This was an order I recieved from The Grainery on Ebay, and besides being almost black from dirt and grunge and not at all the picture of the box of lino shown on the auction, the larger pieces in the shipment turned out to be iron rather than lead. :twisted:

Fortunately, not too much of the iron, but I need to know if I should make the best of it or go through all of the trouble of shipping it back to them and possibly lose some shipping money or take a negative retaliatory feedback from them when if I give them the feedback they deserve on this one.

[Morgan Astorbilt]

In the Lino I've got, almost all the spacers are the same alloy as the type. Very few of the steel ones, which rise to the top of the pot. After the printing job, it's all ground up by the Lino machine, and melted to use again.
Morgan

[ACK450]

Morgans right
In my early printing days all we used was Lino. All spacers (thin to .75 inch) were cast of the same metal. ACK450

[VTDW]

Expect around 22-23 Bnh.

Dave

[GLL]

Take a photo of the iron pieces with a magnet stuck to them and mail it to the seller. Ask for a partial refund or some more linotype as replacement. Give them a chance to correct it. If they refuse then blast them.

Jerry

[Sundogg1911]

The last batch of Lino that I got (four 5 gallon buckets full) most of The spacers were actually harder, but they wernt iron. The load I got before that they tested about the same. (I just do some random checking) I usually find thin copper spacers as well. all the "junk" floats to the top and gets skimmed off. I just got a line on about a ton of Lino, that the guy just wants rid of. (I will pay Him anyway) but my truck's in the shop with broken leafspring brackets. He said he'll hold it all for me (He bought out a print shop and just wants it gone) I love when that happens :-)

[Ricochet]

I have a bucket of lino that's got some shiny silver strips in it that are very soft and springy, almost rubbery feeling (but not stretchy.) Haven't figured out what those are yet.

[Typecaster]

I've come across wooden spacers as well...they're easy to separate out. I guess if I don't take 'em out, the melt will be self-fluxing—sorta like Pat Marlin's flux.

Odds are the linespacers are all new metal straight from the foundry, and may be a little harder than the usual slugs of type we get. All the print shops I've known kept reusing the metal until it didn't fill out the matrices (molds) well, then it was sent back to the foundry, assayed, and additional tin, etc. was added to bring it back to spec. And since smelting and recasting into pigs was often relegated to the "kid," the temperature control had one setting...HIGH.

[Bullshop]

Some of those spacers are brass and make nice shim stock for shimming scope bases, over size dove tails and such.
BIC/BS

[shotstring]

Great idea about the brass spacers Bullshop. I come across lots of those mixed in with the lino I have.....would have thrown them away without thinking.

On the bad lino order, it was the large square 2" x 2" pieces that were iron. I got a partial refund today for the entire order minus the shipping. They never said a word after recieving 4 emails...just sent the refund. I still felt kind of bad for them though, because the shipment had been so grungy and black, there is no way they would have been able to tell what was lead and what wasn't, even if it was their area...which obviously it wasn't. Still, never a good idea to show a picture of one thing and then sell something else.

[GSM]

Shotstring:

Got you with the picture too, did they?

I thought I was going to get a nice big box of monotype. NOT!

Lots of spacers, a few pieces of monotype, everything covered in a nice layer of black inky soot.

[shotstring]

Sorry to hear that you got burned by that seller too GSM. I should have known better - you don't get 276 negatives for doing everything right even though you might have thousands of positive feedbacks along with it. Who knows how many transactions ended like mine did, with no record at all, either good or bad. But most of their negatives came from bad packing - you know - like packing a chest of drawers in the same box with complete set of rare antique china..... [smilie=1:
I figured, how could they screw up an order of simple linotype???

How come we get this and Sundogg gets free linotype for life? There must be something to that Karma thing after all.....

[GSM]

Yup.

What's the old saying? Karma's a bi*ch, and she's in heat.