New to Typophile? Accounts are free, and easy to set up.
Bought Lead Type
Posted by rs_donsata in
23 Mar 2010 — 12:51pm
23 Mar 2010 — 12:51pm
Hi, I just bought a box of old leady type from a small print shop. It's a display sized Black Letter family. There seem to be mixed pieces of 72 and 60 pt in the box.
¿Any idea on how to clean this? Most of the dirtiness is dust but there are also some rusted pieces.
TIA
User login
Support our Sponsors
23 Mar 2010 — 12:54pm
Lye and a stiff toothbrush.
23 Mar 2010 — 1:22pm
Better to polish the corrosion off by laying down a sheet of emery cloth (1000 or finer grit) on a hard, flat surface and using gentle, orbital motions...
23 Mar 2010 — 1:58pm
Beautiful stuff (& photo's BTW)!
23 Mar 2010 — 2:08pm
A treasure chest, but filled with lead and not gold!
23 Mar 2010 — 2:50pm
Héctor,
Actually, you might try denture cleaning tablets like Polydent but get the cheap generic brand.
23 Mar 2010 — 4:56pm
Watch out for type lice!
23 Mar 2010 — 10:38pm
Don't use anything hard to rub it. There are some leather pads, you can buy in any supermarket for cleaning plates and whatever. Its useful. On the oder hand: You don't want to print with it anymore, do you? So you can use harder solutions, too.
You might see the round marks on the side of the types? This are "Gussmarken" - I don't know the english word. This is one from Schelter & Giesecke:
http://www.bleisetzer.de/cms/front_content.php?idcat=58&idart=826
Your american types should have an height of 23,32 mm. German height is at 23,56 mm.
If you need any more types, use: ;-)
http://www.bleisetzer.de/cms/front_content.php?idcat=69&article_id=670
24 Mar 2010 — 9:11am
> I don't know the English word.
I think it is just called the notch.
24 Mar 2010 — 9:23am
Gussmarken are called pin-marks in english. There used to be a great collection of these on the old BriarPress website.
You can still get to it from the internet archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060923081616/www.briarpress.org/cgi-bin/bri...
25 Mar 2010 — 7:48pm
I use lacquer thinner and a tooth brush
1 Apr 2010 — 11:26am
Excellent, thanks all.
I'll show you the result soon.