Picked up some linotype from a friend who just acquired a large amount. It’s a mix of small cast blocks typical of what I’ve encountered in the past and strips like the ones pictured below. The strips vary in length and thickness. Some are around 3/16” with square or round cavities running lengthwise. The width of the solid strips also vary somewhat. Has anyone ran across lino shaped like this before? Anyone know what it was used for or why it’s in this forum. Just curious, I can get more pics this evening.

Yep.

It is/was used as spacing for print lines and columns on newspapers especially.

Is there any obit photos?

Those get melted first. Creepy!

Thanks for the info Hawk. Interesting for sure. No obit photos that I have seen. Might be some though. friend has steel drums full. Be awhile getting to the bottom of them although he might. He shoots a lot!

Interesting info, I just had the pictured strip tested. Results are; 86.9% Pb, 9.67% Sb, 3.25% Sn.

These results compared to what I commonly see for linotype (84%Pb, 12%Sb, 4%Sn) would suggest I guess that this has been depleted somewhat during its use. Good stuff nonetheless!

I’ll test my scrap and hopefully mix up some nice ingots for bullet use.

Those strips can be anywhere from 10 to 20 BHN, the spacers did not need to be hard because they never hit the paper over and over like the letters/words did. We have five Heidelberg letter presses at work, three small and two large ones in various size machines, we use ours for scoring, perfing and die cutting.

All the Lino pigs were sold off way before I started working there, but some of the old guys gave me all the Lino pigs they had held onto for various reasons over the years, wasn't much, probably around 200 lbs. or so that I'm still sitting on for a rainy day.

There are boxes full of the spaces all around old and some new just like you show in the pic and we still use those but I can get a few random pieces and check the hardness and see what I come up with. Would be interesting to know since I might inherit them one day since the boss man know I'm a bullet caster.

Linotype usually comes in pig form or the as cast strips of words, which the word Linotype gets it name Line of type, Max BHN of new Lino is around 22, old Lino that hasn't been through the rejuvenation process will be softer, it's usually depleted of some percentage of Tin and antimony.

Individual characters etc. are usually made from Monotype which has a much higher antimony content thus making a much harder alloy, individual characters etc. that would be use repeatedly over and over were made from monotype as they would last longer and not required to be replaced as often.

Spacers can be made from brass, wood, pure lead or Lino or somewhere in between, just depends on if they were bought as new or made in-house from scrap. Spacers can also be made for aluminum blocks in various widths and sizes, these will have holes or slots in them and most will be painted black when new, but most of the paint wares off after a while.

I have some of them in a bucket of type that I have.
Now I know why thet were mixed in with the type blocks

I've got quite a few of those spacers in with my boxes of type. I assumed they were the same alloy as my type and all my pigs. I had a pig tested and it was closer to monotype with around 74% lead and the rest tin and antimony. The pigs are really hard but work well for blending with softer stuff. Lately I've been doing 1# of this mono to 4#s of ww alloy. Seems to cast well.

Bb

Got a piece of the above spacer at work but haven't tested it yet, wife came down with Covid on Friday morning so I'm pretty busy taking care of her and things around the house. She is fine and nobody else is positive, so if I get a break today I'll give it the pencil test if nothing else. I've found it just as reliable as using the Lee tester.

Update
It took a H hardness pencil to scribe the lead spacer I have, estimated BHN is 20 to 22.