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Casting supply info needed

Does anyone have a suggestion on what these are? I purchased a large lot of loading supplies and equipment along with apx 1 5 gallon bucket of lead wheel weights and a few boxs of this. I originally thought thry were stick on wheel weights but i opened a box this evening and found that not to be the case. They are not flexible and the lines do not allow breaking them. In small letters there is brownwood texas 75801 stamped on the thin side in reverse. Any ideas?
 

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If you don't get a better answer, give the Brownwood Metal and Scrap shop a ring and see if they can fill you in.
 
It appears to be print for printing machines
My guess would be Linotype material. I have had the same looking bars that were used from a source that also sold me melted down print poured into 25# bars, ready to be poured for more print. If so you have a great source for antimony to harden soft lead for casting.

Just my guess but if I'm right, it should be hard enough to break, before it will bend. A vice and use a Cresent wrench adjusted to the thin side for enough leverage to see if I'm right, when it breaks it will have a course porous texture like cast iron.
 
It appears to be print for printing machines
My guess would be Linotype material. I have had the same looking bars that were used from a source that also sold me melted down print poured into 25# bars, ready to be poured for more print. If so you have a great source for antimony to harden soft lead for casting.

Just my guess but if I'm right, it should be hard enough to break, before it will bend. A vice and use a Cresent wrench adjusted to the thin side for enough leverage to see if I'm right, when it breaks it will have a course porous texture like cast iron.
There are a couple of broken pieces and along the breaks it is pretty course grain material.

Ill add i know nothing about casting as i dont cast at this time. Im planning to melt down the wheel weights and pull all of the metal tabs etc out of them and pour some ingots in whatever cheap cast iron muffin pans or the like just to make for easier storage. I may take up casting down the road when i have more time on my hands. Figure ill collect lead along the way and store it in a corner in the shop.
 
There are a couple of broken pieces and along the breaks it is pretty course grain material.

Ill add i know nothing about casting as i dont cast at this time. Im planning to melt down the wheel weights and pull all of the metal tabs etc out of them and pour some ingots in whatever cheap cast iron muffin pans or the like just to make for easier storage. I may take up casting down the road when i have more time on my hands. Figure ill collect lead along the way and store it in a corner in the shop.
Just make sure to not mix the type with other lead alloys. Keep it separate till you know what you want alloy with it, It is precious to casters, I'm betting that's what you have, Flux it well if you do decide to take it to bar form.
 
Just make sure to not mix the type with other lead alloys. Keep it separate till you know what you want alloy with it, It is precious to casters, I'm betting that's what you have, Flux it well if you do decide to take it to bar form.


I flipped the image around and did some photo enhanchment. It says "Brownwood Texas" cannot make out the third word. The third character looks like a number.To fancy of an ingot for anything but linotype for professional linotype machine which have been obsolete for many years. Will try to look up linotype sales in Brownwood and see if I can find anything.

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When the newspapers type got beat up they melted it and cast it in a special machine that made new type letters. They probably had their own molds with the company name on them.


Extracted Article Text (OCR)

Veteran Employes Retiring An era will soon end for two Brownwood Bulletin employes well as for ffie newspaper. Clyde Willhelm and Clint Honnol have set their retirements to coincide with the shifting over from one type of printing to another. the Brownwood Bulletin moves to its new quarters on Carnegie Street, the newspaper will leave behind the letterpress ittethod of printing and convert to offset production. Honnol and Willhelm, who have spent most of their work- Ing days at the Brownwood Bulletin, say they are not too disturbed at the change but both agree they feel a twinge of sadness to see the letterpress method of printing at the newspaper end. As Willhelm expressed it, "It's been a good trade for many years." HONNOL SAifc that even though the move means progress, the old machines are all that he is accustomed to using.

Both men have been familiar figures in the composing room the years. Although semi retired for the past months, Honnol and Willhelm agreed to work at least part- time until the last newspaper is (printed by the old method. Willhelffl, 69, has been associated with the printing trade for about 60 years. "I started inking an old George Washington hand press before I was bid enough to go to school," he said. "I began setting type as soon as 1 could read," he added.

His first Introduction to print- ONE OF THE LAST Clint Honnol, a Brownwood Bulletin linotype operator who has spent most of his working years at the plant and who is now semi-retired, plans to remain at his post in the composing room until the last newspaper is printed by the letterpress method. He plans to retire when the new Bulletin building opens on Carnegie. (Bulletin Photo) ing was in Mason where he grew up. He moved to Eden at eight and started to set type by hand after school and Saturdays. His father was publisher of the Eden Echo.
 
I started casting with the internet as my source for info, and I guess I didn't read enough so my first were cast from soft lead. At the speed I was loading them it would have been OK. Problem was pure soft lead cast poorly. My bullets were so wrinkled they looked like crap. I eventually found out the alloy was the problem. I melted some pewter Christmas tree ornaments that were way too heavy to hang on a tree and useless in with my lead. I told this to say, read a lot about alloys and know that soft lead needs help. My next purchase will be a hardness tester. I am lusting after your linotype.
 
I started casting with the internet as my source for info, and I guess I didn't read enough so my first were cast from soft lead. At the speed I was loading them it would have been OK. Problem was pure soft lead cast poorly. My bullets were so wrinkled they looked like crap. I eventually found out the alloy was the problem. I melted some pewter Christmas tree ornaments that were way too heavy to hang on a tree and useless in with my lead. I told this to say, read a lot about alloys and know that soft lead needs help. My next purchase will be a hardness tester. I am lusting after your linotype.
You can get some Linotype alloy at this link. Do not get pure Antimony!!! It is very difficult to melt and use in an alloy.
 
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I flipped the image around and did some photo enhanchment. It says "Brownwood Texas" cannot make out the third word. The third character looks like a number.To fancy of an ingot for anything but linotype for professional linotype machine which have been obsolete for many years. Will try to look up linotype sales in Brownwood and see if I can find anything.

View attachment 1508453
That third word isn't a word, it's a zip code; 76801. Looks like this was a rapid print for mailing addresses.

Yup, printing press linotype.
 
I started casting with the internet as my source for info, and I guess I didn't read enough so my first were cast from soft lead. At the speed I was loading them it would have been OK. Problem was pure soft lead cast poorly. My bullets were so wrinkled they looked like crap. I eventually found out the alloy was the problem. I melted some pewter Christmas tree ornaments that were way too heavy to hang on a tree and useless in with my lead. I told this to say, read a lot about alloys and know that soft lead needs help. My next purchase will be a hardness tester. I am lusting after your linotype.
Tin adds fluidity so the alloy so it fills the shape of the mold. (sharp square corners, no wrinkles). Antimony increases hardness. 40 years ago I found a company in town that sold lead alloys for people casting bearings. They would make any alloy you wanted very inexpensive. Wrinkles can be caused by a cold mold or casting at too low of a temperature. You don't need a hardness tester just find a source of tin and antimony. Buying plumbers soldier is to expensive as a tin source. Sold all my equiptment and gave away a lot of quality lead alloy.
 
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I get the tin from the pewter, and it was free and available. I have a lot of lead but it is mostly soft lead, but early on I melted clip on wheel weights in with it, so some of my ingots are harder than others. The last batch I did I separated the clip on wheel weights and have a set of stamps to id them. I've only done 38 special and 9mm and have not loaded any of the 9s yet. I got a lube sizer but have yet to size anything other than with the Lee sizer.
 
The bad thing about getting lead from pewter is you have no idea what % you have. I found a source several year ago for tin bulion, 99.9% pure, cheapest investment for sure tin alloy I ever made. I have a supply of over 1000 pounds in pure lead ingots from fork truck counterwieghts, then I have over 150 lbs of lynotype from an old printing operation. All I use, and every time my mixture will come out exactly to my recipie.

I use a lot of pure lead tin alloy for low speed under 1000 fps bullets in HP's, the tin does the main job of allowing the soft lead to fill out and make sharp corners in the mold, but also aids in toughness to keep the bullets from tearing apart at the mushroom. It aid in elasticity as well as consistent wieght by filling the entire cavity of the mold, even in harder alloys.
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This is more than I will ever need for casting anymore. I only shoot cast in my handguns, in fact I won't wast money on jackets in a handgun as they are poor options for power, accuracy, and I'm lazy, jackets requier cleaning the barrel to keep them accurate, cast DOES NOT!

I also learned years ago, wheel weights are the most contaminated source of alloy, and the easiest way to destroy a batch of wwalloy there is today. Most ww today are not ww alloy, but contaminated with zinc! Zinc will destroy any alloy you have for casting accurate, non fouling alloys.

For the past 20 or more years I mix my own, I prefer just under #2 alloy, and can run over 1600 fps in my revolvers, from heavy 475L, 454 Cassul, 45 Colt, 357 mag, 327 Federal, and 32 S&W Long. Having enough of each alloy I can blend my alloys consistently to match any alloy I use time after time.

I don't need a hardness tester, or an analyzer to know what works for me, but that is what casting is all about, making an alloy that works and being able to repeat it over and over.

The biggest mistake most make with revolver bullets, is making to hard af an alloy. Second is being able to repeat their alloy. Be very careful smelting those ww into ingots, and like I said before, keep the lynotype alloy separate.
 
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"Be very careful smelting those ww into ingots." Please explain< I have too little knowledge to understand. I touch everything in the bucket from the tire place with a magnet. steel goes in the scrap steel bucket. then stick on and clip on WWs get attacked with the side cutters. Dented goes to the lead bucket, unmarked goes to the zinc bucket. But ive been told clip on WWs are a harder alloy than stick on WWS so I have started to separate the clip on WWs. I figure that the clip on WWs will be for a gun needing a harder bullet. Like instead of my 38s save them for the 357.
 

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