Mystery metal

[15meter]

I was given ~ 38 lbs. of a mystery metal. I was told it was lead. It most certainly is not lead. 90% full 2 lb. coffee can weighs about 20 lbs.

It's bright and shiny, like straight tin. It's some form of printing type. When you whack it with a hammer it smooshes nicely, doesn't fracture or shatter.

300310

Anybody have a clue what it is? Where it would have been used?

[Sasquatch-1]

Linotype. High antimony content for hardening alloy. You have a very good friend.

[15meter]

That was my first guess, I don't think it's heavy enough. An almost full two pound coffee can of linotype should be tough to pick up. One can weighs in at 20 lbs. A second can weighs in a 18 lbs.

I've got a third can that is less than a third full of lead, it's pushing 15 pounds.

Was there ever a pure tin type font used in printing?

Or aluminum?

May have to take a handful to the local print shop. We've still have an old school print shop. 99% of what he does is on new digital equipment but he still has the old stuff in the back, either for nostalgia or it's just too expensive to move all that cast iron out;-)

[Sasquatch-1]

Do you have a hardness tester? Lino should test out around 22BHn or higher.

[Dusty Bannister]

Time to consider the help of list member BNE for an XRF scan. I doubt it is linotype, I have never seen that form before, so have no idea what it really is so the XRF scan is best choice.

[Alloy]

I have melted, blended, sampled and performed XRF on several tons of type metals over the past 40 yrs. I had a small sample of type set which looked like your metal and contained 68% Pb, 21 % Sb and 9 % Sn per XRF.
If you have a vessel large enough to melt your total amount you could melt, stir well, flux and sample the melt and have it XRF'ed and you would have a very good idea of its metals content.
Good luck with your inquiry.

[Rickf1985]

Or, you could send one piece to member BNE and I am sure he would do it for you for the price of a one pound ingot of lead. The one pound payment would not be that lead, just regular although I know he likes wheel weights.

[Dusty Bannister]

Link to BNE instructions thread.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?410426-XRF-Gripe&highlight=xrf+gripe

[Soundguy]

I was given ~ 38 lbs. of a mystery metal. I was told it was lead. It most certainly is not lead. 90% full 2 lb. coffee can weighs about 20 lbs.

It's bright and shiny, like straight tin. It's some form of printing type. When you whack it with a hammer it smooshes nicely, doesn't fracture or shatter.

300310

Anybody have a clue what it is? Where it would have been used?

Lino type. I bout a 2# can from a metal supplier.. it had 19# of lino in there. And yes.. it's shiney like tin.. hard and makes fantastic bullets when alloyed down.. you can go 50/50 lead lino and shoot just about anything that doesn't need a gas check or is over 1800 fps.

[15meter]

Took a sample to the local printer, he thought it was aluminum, based on weight and appearance. He said it looked like no type that he had dealt with before.

He did keep the sample for his display case of printing oddities.

He also said that there were mid 20th century typesetting machines that did indeed use aluminum letters.

Still going to dig further.

See if the is a way to do a water displacement calculation to come up with a volume/weight calculation.

Need to check on BNE, he checked some samples for me several years ago but I thought that he had gone into retirement.

[Rickf1985]

Well, aluminum melt at a little over 1200 degrees so it will not be hard to try a piece and set it next to a small piece of lead and hit both with a small propane torch on medium heat and see where it melts. I did printing for many years and a lot of that was hand set and linotype and I have never heard of nor seen aluminum type. I would not want to be around a typesetting machine that had molten aluminum in it. You are talking foundry stuff, not print shop!!!

[15meter]

Well, aluminum melt at a little over 1200 degrees so it will not be hard to try a piece and set it next to a small piece of lead and hit both with a small propane torch on medium heat and see where it melts. I did printing for many years and a lot of that was hand set and linotype and I have never heard of nor seen aluminum type. I would not want to be around a typesetting machine that had molten aluminum in it. You are talking foundry stuff, not print shop!!!

Listening to the printer, it sounded like the individual letters were not melted down and recast but were disassembled and sorted then reassembled for what ever was to be printed next.

Probably try the melt test tomorrow.

It would be sweet if if is indeed linotype.

[Soundguy]

Lino is indeed lighter than lead.

[15meter]

Well, aluminum melt at a little over 1200 degrees so it will not be hard to try a piece and set it next to a small piece of lead and hit both with a small propane torch on medium heat and see where it melts. I did printing for many years and a lot of that was hand set and linotype and I have never heard of nor seen aluminum type. I would not want to be around a typesetting machine that had molten aluminum in it. You are talking foundry stuff, not print shop!!!

Walked through the local newspaper "composing" room more than once circa 1970. My mother worked at the newspaper. Back then security was non-existent. Suspect the difference between a burn from that 700 degree lead and cool to the touch aluminum would be significant.

The printer I spoke to yesterday talked about individual letters assembled then locked in a frame and used in a letter or hand press. Low volume short run kind of stuff.

May have been a very short lived idea with the coming of computers and the revolution in printing.

Wrote your own book? No publishers will touch it? No problem, Publish it your self. Your 5 copy press run.

The change has been dramatic, the first newsletter I published for my gun club was 2 pages straight out of Microsoft Word. Simple paragraphs, zero graphics. Black ink.

Last iceboat club newsletter ran 10 pages in full color with high resolution photos.

But I still haven't given up the hope that it's lino.

[bangerjim]

Linotype is normally "lines-o-type", forming complete words and sentences in the strip. Hard ~22 hardness or there abouts.

I have only seen stuff similar to your example once and have no idea what it is. I was told it was for a short run hand press or embossing for one-off hot foil name embossing of leather goods, books, and belts. I use my standard foundry/monotype with my gold foil hot embossing presses.

BNE can tell you.

[15meter]

Did the #4 lead shot and one of these letters with the propane test.

It melts way faster than 50's vintage Winchester #4 shot reclaimed from OLD red paper hulls. Like almost instantly with the torch.

The shot took a little bit before it started to melt.

Just for the grins of it weigh a single #4 and a single letter. Maybe my imagination that it is that much lighter.

And scrounge up some stuff to send to BNE, if I'm going to do it, I'll send several samples of different "stuff" I've accumulated recently.

Lookin' a lot like christmas:drinks:

[super6]

The shot most likely has a graphite coat and will take longer to burn off, The tin will melt fast. Good find!

[Rickf1985]

Walked through the local newspaper "composing" room more than once circa 1970. My mother worked at the newspaper. Back then security was non-existent. Suspect the difference between a burn from that 700 degree lead and cool to the touch aluminum would be significant.

The printer I spoke to yesterday talked about individual letters assembled then locked in a frame and used in a letter or hand press. Low volume short run kind of stuff.

May have been a very short lived idea with the coming of computers and the revolution in printing.

Wrote your own book? No publishers will touch it? No problem, Publish it your self. Your 5 copy press run.

The change has been dramatic, the first newsletter I published for my gun club was 2 pages straight out of Microsoft Word. Simple paragraphs, zero graphics. Black ink.

Last iceboat club newsletter ran 10 pages in full color with high resolution photos.

But I still haven't given up the hope that it's lino.

Short lived?!!! If you call 500 years short lived I guess so.[smilie=l:

It sounds like the printer you talked to had no experience at all with hand set type! Letterpress was the original form of printing and goes back to Johan Gutenberg in the 15 century! Individual letters of type set by hand and wedged into forms. I did this for years using not much more modern lock called Quoins for locking the type into metal frames for use in letterpress machines. Heidelberg windmills and Miele vertical's in my case mostly. And later Kluge web fed letterpress. And the type was as listed in all of the books on the forum here, Foundry type. Lead alloy.

[15meter]

Short lived?!!! If you call 500 years short lived I guess so.[smilie=l:

It sounds like the printer you talked to had no experience at all with hand set type! Letterpress was the original form of printing and goes back to Johan Gutenberg in the 15 century! Individual letters of type set by hand and wedged into forms. I did this for years using not much more modern lock called Quoins for locking the type into metal frames for use in letterpress machines. Heidelberg windmills and Miele vertical's in my case mostly. And later Kluge web fed letterpress. And the type was as listed in all of the books on the forum here, Foundry type. Lead alloy.

Reference was aluminum type in an automatic type setting machine that worked completely different than the hot linotype or the compose with individual letters and build up a frame that everybody is familiar with.

Completely different technology that I'm not familiar with but he certain spoke like he was.

Last time I had any hands on stuff with printing equipment was in college almost 50 years ago.

Technology never stands still, some are a flash in the pan, some stay around long enough for everybody to not notice or remember the little flashes.

But it's all good, always new stuff to learn.

[kevin c]

I’m curious to see if a low flame will melt the letters.

Another quick and dirty test could be to use a lead detection kit from a hardware store. Aluminum shouldn’t give a positive. The tests do cost a bit, though.

[15meter]

I’m curious to see if a low flame will melt the letters.

Another quick and dirty test could be to use a lead detection kit from a hardware store. Aluminum shouldn’t give a positive. The tests do cost a bit, though.

See post #16, I did the torch test on a single letter and #4 shot from a 1950's Winchester shotgun shell.

It most certainly is not aluminum as I first guessed.

Need to ship these and a couple others off to BNE for a definitive answer.

[Dusty Bannister]

Next time you feel the need to check the melting point consider the use of a small spoon and a casting furnace with a PID controller. Just place the spoon and samples on the surface of the melt, turn on the heat and record the temp when the sample slumps.

[15meter]

Next time you feel the need to check the melting point consider the use of a small spoon and a casting furnace with a PID controller. Just place the spoon and samples on the surface of the melt, turn on the heat and record the temp when the sample slumps.

That presupposes that I have such elaborate equipment, sounds way too high tech for a guy whose goal with cast boolit reloading is to ring dingers like this:
300414
Although this one doesn't have the same melodic tone it once had:-(

And not make guns look like this:
300415

:bigsmyl2:

[brassrat]

You harshed our mellow

[15meter]

You harshed our mellow

Huh?

[1903.colt]

When Im alloying casting Lead my inventory has been shot with a Spectro gun , Go to scrap dealer buy some lead have him Spectro your mystery metal.

[brassrat]

Huh?

Google it. That poor gun. Was that someone elses?

[15meter]

Google it. That poor gun. Was that someone elses?

Never heard the term before, no it wasn't my gun.

Watched the guy blow the gun up at a cowboy shoot a number of years ago. I was standing about 30 feet directly behind him when he touched it off.

He started the stage with a misfire/squib on his very first shot. Went back to the loading bench cleared the gun and reloaded. Came back on the line and I believe it was his first shot after clearing the problem that there was a tremendous report. He was shooting through a window that had a tin awning above it and I watched the tin awning bounce up and down. I had no idea what had happened, but I was pretty sure it wasn't good. Not everything slips past me.

He turned around with a stunned look on his face, he was just a little bit discombobulated. I followed him the the unloading bench and got a couple of photos.

Another shooter offered to loan him a revolver so he could finish out the match. When the crazy dude started to load his own ammo into the loaned gun, he was stopped and given ammo. Dude was ready to make it three screwups in a row.

To this day he claims it was a light load of I believe Unique that blew up the gun. "It's a well documented fact!!!!" is his line.

He also claims to be pretty much an expert on all aspects of reloading. I saw him this spring with tables and tables of reloading equipment at a gun show pontificating on all things reloading.

There is a stunning amount of stuff I don't know about reloading, but I don't think you can blow up a gun with a light charge of Unique.

Don't shoot much Cowboy anymore, when I do I make sure I'm not on his posse. Don't mind lead splatter occasionally, don't need to deal with red splatter.

And he didn't get hurt and the pieces and parts were never found.

[Soundguy]

" it's a well documented fact "

Well.. To be fair... It "Is" a discussed issue. Extremely light loads of fast powders can and have relieved revolvers of top straps and cylinder halves. With a few minutes of searching online.. I can find 3 main reasons for guns popping...and pretty equal distribution too.. Ie..33% of posts each.

1, light loads of fast powders.
2, double charges of fast powders.
3, either of the above with the added benefit of a prior barrel obstruction.

#1 and #2 gets talked about often in conjunction with large case capacities.

Sometimes powder flashover is also mentioned in references to #1 / and with large capacity cases.

An example..just one of pages I found:

https://reloadammo.com/light-loads-can-explode/


So.... To be fair... It -is- a well discussed phenomenon.

[15meter]

Squib/no powder followed immediately by the disassembly of the gun leads me to believe he is trying to cover for a double charge.

I suspect that is much more likely.

Just glad it was his gun, and no, I don't follow any of his reloading recommendations.

There are much more knowledgeable people than me on the forum, perhaps they will chime in on a "discussed" as opposed to well documented occurrences.

Shot skeet Sunday, guy I got squaded with swore that a recent vaccine was made from ground up 6 week old babies. That was "discussed" on the DARK WEB where only he was smart enough to find the truth.

I'll pay more attention next time to who is on the squad before I go out.

[brassrat]

Thanks for explaining, good story

[Soundguy]

Any reason why the post I made on which vaccines were made from fetal cells, including a link from a medical site , was deleted, while the post about ground up babies is still here?

[Dusty Bannister]

Any reason why the post I made on which vaccines were made from fetal cells, including a link from a medical site , was deleted, while the post about ground up babies is still here?

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?431413-COVID-Discussion-Is-Not-Allowed

[Soundguy]

It wasn't a covid discussion... It was a post on vaccines made from fetal cells..in the post was a short LIST of vaccines. One of those was a covid vaccine. Just a list..not a discussion.

It was a good post..if that single word kills it..why not bring the post back minus that word... Otherwise...it appears it's a favorites game when it isnt/shouldn't be. Obviously vaccines are allowed to be discussed..and fetal cells too.. As the post I was replying to is still here. Why not word censor that word like others are and x it out???