Linotype hardness

[tcassem]

I recently purchased a fifty pound box of linotype, mostly in thin strips and some actual type. I tested the hardness with the pencil test and according to the data, it is 16-18 bhn. Now I have always heard that linotype is around 22 bhn. Any thoughts? I do find the pencils to be fairly accurate. The next pencil down, would not scratch it.

[Mitch]

New loino would be 22bhn.Other than that it could be any bhn after being re used several times.so your ver well could be 16 to 18 bhn.i have found the same thing in the fe batches i have bought.

[kmw1954]

First thing you need to know and ask is which type of linotype is it? Is it Lino? is it print type? Is it foundry type, which is the hardest? Monotype? All have different properties and hardness.

[rototerrier]

The thin strips, are they the spacers or the actual type? If spacers, they could be anything.

Otherwise, as already stated, they could have been remelted and mixed no telling how many times. Lino hardens and content vary.

[uscra112]

The thin strips, are they the spacers or the actual type? If spacers, they could be anything.

Otherwise, as already stated, they could have been remelted and mixed no telling how many times. Lino hardens and content vary.

Right. Printers only controlled the composition of alloy that would be formed into type.

[cwlongshot]

First thing you need to know and ask is which type of linotype is it? Is it Lino? is it print type? Is it foundry type, which is the hardest? Monotype? All have different properties and hardness.
^^ THIS^^^

Also I have always found slugs and spacers SOFTER then actual type. All depends upon if it was made "inhouse" ie off letter press machine or it was bought in bulk by printer as spacers. See spacers are only that and didnt need the hardness type did as it wasnt printing or contacting anythi g TO PRINT. If ya understand me.

CW

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I believe some linotype "spacers" are extruded, If so, then the alloy would be work-softened.

I've heard reports that spacers could be a softer alloy...and some maybe? A decade ago, when I was a newbie caster. I bought some linotype, the MFR boxes I received was "type strips" mixed with "spacers". The type strips would break easy, the spacers would bend. I figured at that time they were a softer alloy. Years later, after I've learned some things about boolit alloys, I did some hardness testing on batches of boolits cast with each, comparing the spacers with the Type strips...they measured the same hardness. This is just anecdotal, do your own test.

[cwlongshot]

I was a printer 25 years... Working letter press and offset afterwards. I have run the typesetting machine loading ingots (pigs) and opening boxes of spacers and sometimes making them. YES THEY ARE DIFFERENT!

CW

[bangerjim]

If you have new real Linotype ("lines-o-type") with words in a 4-6" long string, that hardness will be at the published spec for the industry. I emphasize NEW here! Printers kept remelting the new stuff and refreshing it with those "pigs" mentioned above, so the end result was a softer alloy as time went on. It actually wore out over time and needed refreshed.

The strips can be anything from 10-20 in hardness. They made many of those on site and just melted what they had. Do not assume just because you have strips of lead used in printing it is of Linotype hardness quality! The spacers did not need to be hard because they never hit the paper over and over like the letters/words did.

I own 3 antique letter presses and have many hundreds of pounds of "leading" (what the printing trade calls those spacing strips that go between sentences and paragraphs). The new factory-bundled stuff I have is rather hard but not of lino quality.

Do not melt them together. Being in the native form allows easy identification for you and it proves what you have, if you ever sell any.

Testing is the only way to tell. And a pencil is like shooting at the side of a barn! Not really accurate at all. With my certified Cabine-style tester, I can read hardness accurately digitally to 0.1 units. But most today, like myself, do not worry about hardness much due to the use of powder coating and the new philology of "fit is king" not hardness. All my standard ammo is cast somewhere between 10 and 12 hardness, with high speed rifles cast somewhere in the 18-20 range and then PC'd.

Bangerjim

[cwlongshot]

Thanks for clarifying all that Jim. [smilie=s: Who knew!! Good information!!


CW

[Conditor22]

It depends on where you look and how the linotype was blended in a certain shop

this is the best answer
https://i.imgur.com/OnPNr23.png


these are other various charts

https://i.imgur.com/RsSbRAI.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/fVzCRdc.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/mu2v5oO.png

[bangerjim]

I always figure GOOD PURE lino at 19-22 and the several charts above agree with my conclusion.

As you can see in the LASC chart, the components vary but the hardness is always the same.

banger

[kmw1954]

Still doesn't answer the question of which Type is it. Lino, stero, mono, foundry. W/o knowing that information the rest is still just guessing. Type with letters on them could be any one of the four.

[salpal48]

As a Former printer , our shop had 6 working Lino machine with operators. Correct Lino should be 22 as the hardness test. Some people would as why . well the answer is that a softer lead mix will not form Crisp and clean Letters when It comes in contact with the substrate paper that was use to Photograph that would become printed matter.
the printing industry found the this mix was perfect . Soft enough to have sharp typeface yet hard enough not to Crack
Lino was an indirect printing method while Mono and other were direct printing. meaning ink printed on the finished product.

[cwlongshot]

This!!

[uscra112]

In buying a couple hundred pounds of "linotype", I acquired some rectangular blocks of type metal that are images for mastheads and advertisements. Too pretty to melt down. I've always believed these were monotype. Wouldn't these have been used in the offset process? Made of harder metal because they'd be used over and over again?

[bangerjim]

In buying a couple hundred pounds of "linotype", I acquired some rectangular blocks of type metal that are images for mastheads and advertisements. Too pretty to melt down. I've always believed these were monotype. Wouldn't these have been used in the offset process? Made of harder metal because they'd be used over and over again?

Yes. That is what my antique presses use. The letters, numbers, and fancy flourishes were all separate (one letter at a time - MONO) and NOT cast in a long strip like LINOTYPE is. Much harder. The "printer's devil" was the apprentice of setting and then breaking down the day's print job run. How would you like to set up an entire newspaper (few pages in those days) letter by letter.....and then tear it down the next day to start all over!

I have over 50 complete fonts styles of antique letterpress type to go with my presses and a 20 drawer oak cabinet full of the fancy ornament blocks. Some are solid hard metal...some are thin hard metal fastened to wooden blocks to keep the weight down.

Those will never be melted down!!!!!! All will go to museums when I am gone.

banger

[uscra112]

Yes. That is what my antique presses use. The letters, numbers, and fancy flourishes were all separate (one letter at a time - MONO) and NOT cast in a long strip like LINOTYPE is. Much harder. The "printer's devil" was the apprentice of setting and then breaking down the day's print job run. How would you like to set up an entire newspaper (few pages in those days) letter by letter.....and then tear it down the next day to start all over!


banger

Gutenberg did that for the entire Bible, did he not? I look at a lot of things they did back then and marvel at the patience they must have had! Renaissance furniture. Tapestries. Heck, just ordinary clothing - thread spinning, weaving, and every stitch in the garment done by hand.

[jsizemore]

My father chose to climb the transmission towers for TVA instead of mine coal. Another friend worked his way through college and then law school instead of stare at a mules *** plowing rocky ground for the rest of his life.

[uscra112]

Just thinkin' - were those monotype blocks engraved by hand? Or was there an original engraving in steel, and the blocks molded from that? Either way, more patience and skills.

Closely studying old Stevens gun catalogs, you can find occasions where an image used in, say, 1900, is actually six years out of date. But they used it anyway; probably because of the cost of a new engraving.

[bangerjim]

There were (and still are in museums) machines that made the molds (some hard brass, some steel) for the letters and ornaments that cast the hard lead. One master mold could make MANY mono and other versions of letterpress type elements. I have a few of the old brass master letter molds in my collection. Ornaments were the hardest to make. Later they discovered resist-etching techniques and could make intricate designs in plates of Zn and fasten them to either Pb or wooden blocks for the press platens.

Now we just fire up WORD, pick and size a font, and drag-n-drop ornaments and pictures onto the screen page, with automatic formatting and placement. Push PRINT and we have as many copies as there is paper in the printer!

What would Gutenberg think~~~~~~~?

banger

[uscra112]

Pantograph machines?

[mdi]

I just scanned the "discussion" on different types of Linotype and uses/methods but, "testing" with pencils will just be ball park at best. I consider home lead hardness testers to just give approximate, +/- 2 - BHN depending on user, readings of BHN and in reality unless one has a specific reason for knowing exact alloy composition, 3 or 4 BHN really don't make that much difference. I have about 200 lbs of my "Mystery Metal" that reads 12 on my Lee tester with my methods (I don't use the 'scope). It could be anywhere from 11-13 (or more) if tested in a well equipped lab or foundry, but it makes good shootable, accurate bullets...

[bangerjim]

Pantograph machines?

A panto-graph is a drawing tool to reduce or enlarge drawings. I use one on my drafting board.

Do a Google search for "monotype machines" and click on the "IMAGES" tab at the top under the search line window. All the pictures you can imagine about printing-related machines!!!!!!

banger

[uscra112]

There are pantograph machines which have a high-speed spindle in them, for engraving. Still common in the jewelry and silverware trades. A machine tool company I use worked for had one for engraving nameplates and control panel labels. In olden times the spindle drive was a round-belt-and-pulley system just like a dentist's drill. You can still buy them.

https://www.mcmaster.com/pantograph-engravers/


Monotype machines: I never knew anything like that even existed. They even justify! Thanks for the pointer. Has the look of something invented alongside the teletype system, given that they used paper tape. How widely used were they?

Not what I have at all. My examples are artwork. As in pen-and-ink drawings of something translated into type metal. I think my avatar is something like. I copied it out of a pre WW2 American Rifleman. It always accompanied a monthly article about competition shooting called The Old Coach. If I can find one of mine I'll post a photo. What is the proper printer's name for them?

[bangerjim]

This might get you started in the right direction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography

Check out the interesting time chart a the right side of the acreen for "history of printing".

[uscra112]

Like so many fields of engineering, you really have to make it a lifelong career to know anything! My old Dad used to say that engineers are people who learn more and more about less and less, until they die knowing absolutely everything about nothing.

Thanks!

[Lloyd Smale]

a lot of printers made there own strips and used there older linotype that had lost some of its hardness to make it. Ive found over the years that 18 bhn is about the going hardness for strips. You might find new ones that test 22 but there not found often. At least when I was getting it around here. Bottom line is ive seen linotype print even go at 18 bhn. You get a lot more consistency with mono and stereo because most printers bought those letters already made.

[MR CHEN]

How so very, very interesting.

I have Linotype ingots that I got, I think, some time in the late 70s that are serial numbered and some are not.
I'm thinking the numbered ones may be certified as re-alloyed. Not sure, just a guess.