Need help identifying mono vs foundry

[tygar]

I just spent a bunch of time trying to find a post/link showing type that was made from mono & foundry. Couldn't find any with pictures on it or descriptors.

Been going thru 400+#s of "mono" I recently bought.

It has 100+ # of regular single letter mono with the groove & some scrap, no problem there.

The rest is big single letter blocks. Most have the groove some don't.

I have tested m/l 50 of the blocks w/grooves, with BHN of 23-33 with most in the 27-30 range. The ungrooved run 19-23 but with some at 27.

So, blocks at 33 are "foundry" hard - but are grooved just like the others & came from the same basic looking blocks.

I know that there are going to be differences due to blocks loosing hard from re-use, but this is more extreme than other mono I have & the difference in the blocks, groove/no groove are extreme.

Any info on what "foundry" is used for & what it looks like as far as grooves etc.?

A link to pics of the differences or pics would be a great help & descriptions of same.
Thanks
Tom

[Mitch]

from what I have read you are on the right path.the ones with the grooves are suppose to be foundry.and without monotype.I have some of the same mix gooved and not.I got the same wide range of hardness trying to check the letters.I had to file them a bit to get a nice clean suface.There seemed to be a very thin layer on the surface that seemed to give a bad hardness reading with my LBT harness tester.I have read it is allways a **** shoot with type metal depending on how many times it has been melted.It sounds like you are going thru the same thing I did.i sorted out the few pieces I had with no groove.then mixed a batch of the grooved pieces using 9% sn and 19% sb as my guide line.I shot for a mix of 2.5%sn and 2.5sb should have been 12bhn I ended up with 14 to 15 Bhn so the stuff was closer to foundy than monotype..What you have is all good stuff so just go from there and try it and see what you come up with after a week or so of age hadening.

[62chevy]

from what I have read you are on the right path.the ones with the grooves are suppose to be foundry.and without monotype.I have some os the same mix gooved and not.I got the same wide range of hardness trying to check the letters.I had to file them a bit to get a nice clean suface.There seemed to be a very thin layer on the surface that seemed to give a bad hardness reading with my LBT harness tester.I have read it is allways a **** shoot with type metal depending on how many times it has been melted.It sounds like you are going thru the same thing I did.i sorted out the few pieces I had with no groove.then mixed a batch of the grooved pieses using 9% sn and 19% sb.I shot for a mix of 2.5%sn and 2.5sb should have been 12bhn I ended up with 14 to 15 Bhn so the stuff was closer to foundy than monotype..What you have is all good stuff so just go from there and try it and see what you come up with after a week or so of age hadening.

That 1000 # deal at Rotometals is looking better every day.

[MaryB]

Foundry type left, mono right

139055

[facetious]

Hear is a good link for info on type metal

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

A lot of the stuff that gets gets sold as lino is stereotype metal.

I started working in a news paper press room in 1979 working on web letter press. By that time thy had stopped using lead plates . When I started casting around 1981 I was given old plate lead by a number of guys that had taken it home to make fishing sinkers. It may seam strange but when I started casting it was harder for me to get WW's then lino. I would mix it 50-50 to get my WW's to last longer.

Even if you don't shoot them you should try casting with some of the type metal's just for fun. When you see how good it cast's you will wonder why you even try to make some of the stuff you find work.

If you add about 5% lino to WW's it will make your WW's cast a lot better.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=135239&d=1414298346&thumb=1 (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=135239&d=1427534496)

This what a lead printing plate looks like. I still have two of them but hate to melt them down. You will never see them again. Thy weigh 40 lb each. I have about 30 lb's melted down to add to what ever I find and should last me a long time.

[Cmm_3940]

From the photo, that looks more like 400 lbs. How thick is it?

[jsizemore]

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

This is a great link. Thanks facetious.

[tygar]

Thanks guys great stuff.

So, If the letter block does NOT have the groove its MONO but with the groove - FOUNDRY.

Well now I'm officially kerfuddled!

Most of it has the groove but is only mid 20s - 30. The blocks that are actually showing 33 are not grooved & smaller 1"x 5/8s m/l. Big grooved blocks 2x2 m/l hang right at 29.

I would post pics but my puter was "fixed" recently & now won't do crp, especially work the pic programs.

I'm going to have someone take pics then email to me then see if I can post.

Let me thoroughly read the info & work on it

Thanks
Tom

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I believe some of the variance of hardness readings you are seeing are due to how old these blocks are. Honestly, I don't think measuring decades old blocks will give you accurate readings.

I would suggest melting some, and casting some boolits, let them age 4 weeks, then measure the hardness. If I were in your shoes, I'd do that with each type/style you have.

My 2¢
Jon

[RogerDat]

I'm on pretty much the same page with Jon on this, I was going to suggest sorting by visual "type" (pun intended). Then casting into ingots. Test the ingots for the individual types, that works better if you have a local scrap yard that will gun it for you. Then you know the alloy for whole batches of letter types.

On the other hand bullet mold and hardness tester might be more readily and commonly available. And the hardness is generally what one cares about. And it can be annoying to sort a bunch of stuff, melt into different batches, only to find out there was almost no difference between the batches. Don't ask how I know that.

[tygar]

Was just in the shop doing just that, "sorting".

I'm still confused by the "foundry" having the groove since I'm looking at 100+#s of itty bitty single letters that are all grooved & that's what I've always thought was "mono". I have checked some that are big enough 1/4" & they are mostly around 20 with a couple higher.

I am going to do as you suggested & take a random sample of each type & melt a few #s of each & see about getting the scrap guy do a reading.

Have another 200# of large blocks (160#) 40 of spacer type I have to pick up. So want to get this boxed & stored.

[Mitch]

I am with Jpn on this to.dont get hung up on the hardness testing on I single block it will make you nuts.the mono or foundry can be any size of letter from the tiny to much bigger.i have some that are around 3/4 in letters I have seen pic of some much bigger.

[mold maker]

Are the surfaces of the letters work hardened from repeated use?
If so any reading will be false until they are melted and ingoted. Even than the age, after pouring, can make a tremendous difference.
Don't get too hung up on the numbers, since they are changing, over time, as in a year. Any fresh poured ingot will change til cast, and than the boolit will age again.
If you cast, size, and shoot, before the ageing process is finished, what difference did all the worry accomplish? If you cast, lube, and load, but store them for a year before shooting, they will have changed while in the ammo box.

[tygar]

Of course that's all true but one needs to have a close approximation of what it is in order to get it down where the antimony is down so it works correctly in a mix approximately what your trying to get.

Big difference between 33bhn w/18% antimony & 20bhn or whatever in between when your trying to make #2.

[facetious]

their about 1/2" thick with ribbing on the back to stiffen them and help cut the weight

I tried to post a pic of the back side but can't seam to get it to post.

If you look close down in front of the plate is a 150gr. OWC and a LBT 170gr. 30 cal.

[jsizemore]

I guess you read this in the Wiki article:

"Although in general Monotype cast type characters can be visually identified as having a square nick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_(typesetting)) (as opposed to the round nicks used on foundry type), there is no easy way to identify the alloy aside from an expensive chemical assay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assay) in a laboratory.
Apart from this the two Monotype companies in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) and the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK) also made moulds with 'round' nicks. Typefounders and printers could and did order specially designed moulds to their own specifications: height, size, kind of nick, even the number of nicks could be changed.
Type produced with these special moulds can only be identified if the foundry or printer is known."

If you believe this article then it will be very hard to know the typemetal composition without knowing the manufacturer or having it shot with XRF. Personally, I'm going to sort by the square/round nick and learn to live with it.

[tygar]

Yep, I did find different kinds of grooves, but mostly the round type.

I started to melt some of it today & try out several new molds, but it started to sprinkle so I quit.

I did get 5# of the little pieces of type with the round grooves. Fluxed 3 times but it was still dirty but will do to shoot for composition.

Did 3# of mono but still have several more batch to check.

Try to get comp on it soon.

[tygar]

Did a 1 day test on the stuff melted yesterdy & the "mono" blocks were right at 21. The small foundry pieces were 30.

Melted some medium & large foundry blocks today will check 24 hr hardness tomorrow.

All these blocks require several fluxes & still have more dirt. ??? they just don't look that dirty.

[MaryB]

I smelted 50 pounds of foundry and it was nasty, I fluxed 5 times and crud kept coming up. Finally hit it with a mega handful of sawdust and it got it clean.

[tygar]

Yep that's for sure. When I said I did several fluxes, that was adding more wax & sawdust while doing 1 flux, so for sure when added together I did a good 5 ea. & still need more. I'm going to really clean & scrub my smelter because there was bunches of crp left in it after the fluxes. Way dirtier than any lino I've done. I have lots of mono/foundry from previous buys but don't remember ever smelting/fluxing any. Lino was always right there & easy to calculate mix.

[Echo]

With the hassle of whether mono- or foundry, my thought is to melt it all down, cast up into ingots, then have it X-Ray tested, and go from there. Criminy...

[tygar]

With the hassle of whether mono- or foundry, my thought is to melt it all down, cast up into ingots, then have it X-Ray tested, and go from there. Criminy...

I did make ingots of all the different styles (7) & plan to get it scoped. Have about 800#s of this stuff so not going to melt it, especially since people want it in original form for sale or trade. + I already have about 50-100#s in ingots from earlier mono/foundry buys. (reminds me, need to have it scoped also)

[Andy]

I know this thread is a few months old but I've been reading on this topic a good bit recently and hope I have something to add. I came into a bunch of single letter type recently and I'm trying to figure out what the composition of it all is. I've gone all over the internet and looked over my batch and here's what I've gathered:

- "Monotype" and "foundry" type were terms primarily used as marketing and not as an industry standard that equaled a certain composition. A reputable company would make sure their "foundry" type was harder than their "monotype" and a disreputable company would sell linotype composition blend as "foundry" type and give it the markings to look like foundry type. So, you can't trust any markings absolutely on their own.
- If you can ID the actual manufacturer (which is possible by the style of edge/bottom markings sometimes) you can fairly well be sure of what you have.
- The type in my batches that has "feet" at the bottom always seems to be shinier than the stuff without. I'm guessing that means better composition but I haven't tested for that theory.
- Any single letter type is pretty well guaranteed to at least be as good a composition as linotype, so you can figure that whenever you get it at linotype price you probably have gotten a good deal.
- It is pretty hard and probably not worth the effort to accurately sort out what type is what among the "foundry" "monotype" class. I would agree with everyone else that the thing to do is just melt it all in a batch and infer composition based on brinell hardness or get it tested if you have a big enough batch to make it worthwhile.
- I see a lot of people complain that they got an alloy batch tested with the xrf scanner thing and the results are known to be incorrect (i.e. known linotype or better reads as pure lead on a scanner etc). I don't have personal experience with this but it somewhat turned me away from the idea of having it tested unless I can get it done free or very inexpensively.

Hope this is useful for someone. I'm just getting into this stuff so take everything I've said with a grain of salt, certainly could be wrong on a thing or two.

[bdicki]

Foundry type left, mono right

139055
I purchased this as lino type. Is this lino or foundry type? I picked it up a couple of years ago and just opened it to mix up some Lyman #2.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t182/bdicki/IMG_0734_zpss9kxv14q.jpg

[MaryB]

Foundry type! Good score! Stuff goes a long ways mixing with pure.

[bdicki]

So I guess my Lyman #2 that I mixed several batches of with 16# of COWW 2# 50/50 solder and 8# of this is not really Lyman #2.

[62chevy]

So I guess my Lyman #2 that I mixed several batches of with 16# of COWW 2# 50/50 solder and 8# of this is not really Lyman #2.

Add .4 of 50/50 solder and 10 pounds of pure lead and that will get you real close to 5/5/95 or 5.5/5.5/94.

[gsdelong]

Strictly from my limited exposure to the printing business in the late 70s early 80s I am constantly amazed By the amount of monotype people think they find.

I would think monotype was pretty rare compared to foundry type.

When I have found these buckets I usually smelt the whole thing and the deal with a single alloy.

There were hundreds of type foundrys so I would think the chance any two would use the exact same alloy as being extremely small.

i would also think that the alloy would change based on the size of the type.

If you were to find a California Job Case (the section drawer) of just one font of type you might be able to assume it is the same alloy.

just my opinion

[tygar]

What do you guys think about selling this stuff. It's mixed small, medium blocks, letters, spacers, just everything from lino to foundry.

I was thinking $2.10 + shipping or trade 2 for 1 for pure.

That sound about right?
Thanks
Tom

[gsdelong]

I would help you on price if I could have never paid retail for alloy. I would suggest separating out all the lino smelting the rest as one homogeneous batch and taking advantage of the 1 pound of lead for the xfr test in s&s to maximize the value.

Gerg

[MaryB]

When buying type lead I prefer it unsmelted so I know what I am getting... $2 pound is the typical ebay price on it when you can find it.

[tygar]

So, mono/foundry is selling the same as lino? Cant see that with all the tin/antimony in it. Not worth selling any then since it would take so little to make soft into good stuff that when compared to getting tin or pewter this is way cheaper. Plus, if I can't make .40 or .50 a # it's not worth the effort.

[David2011]

Monotype, linotype and foundry are all different. Linotype was held in a pot in the machine and each letter cast as the typesetter pressed the keys on a typewriter-like keyboard. An entire line-o-type was cast as a slug to put into the printing press. Nominal hardness is BHN 22 and in its natural state is either in large pigs or lines of printable type. Monotype was also set from a keyboard but it was manufactured separately form the typesetting process as individual letters. Each upper or lower case letter, number or punctuation was held in its own track and brought to the line with a keystroke as an individual piece of type. After printing the machine was able to return the pieces of type to their storage positions due to the back of every piece having a unique shape. Its BHN is around 28 and its unaltered state is individual single characters of type. Foundry type is typically large, very hard hand set type in headline sizes, also used for grocery store and other weekly newsprint flyers. It is very hard, the hardest of the three mentioned, as it was reused repeatedly. Should be around BHN 30.

David

[MaryB]

Actually foundry comes in all sizes... I have pieces that are small 8 point type!