Vintage work crew photos

[Floradawg]

I have heard several ideas where the phrase "mind your p's and q's" comes from but I think it has to be from setting type.

[the harmonious blacksmith]

We hot metal compositors avoid using the "LEAD" word.
Everyone goes "we're all gonna die" because there is so much misinformation about lead poisoning.

LEAD IS NOT POISONOUS!

Lead oxide is poisonous. Lead oxide, basically lead "rust" was used in paints, lubricants and other uses.

Molten Linotype metal, which is normally run at 535- 550 degrees max, is also safe as to the fumes. The fumes from the molten metal are not toxic until at least 1100 degrees.

I "set type" on one of my Linotypes 6-7 days a week, so I had a test for lead in my body and I tested in the "unexposed" range.

I think you could keep a Linotype slug in your mouth like a toothpick if you want to for the rest of your life without harm, though I can't fathom why you would want to.

[Floradawg]

We hot metal compositors avoid using the "LEAD" word.
Everyone goes "we're all gonna die" because there is so much misinformation about lead poisoning.

LEAD IS NOT POISONOUS!

Lead oxide is poisonous. Lead oxide, basically lead "rust" was used in paints, lubricants and other uses.

Molten Linotype metal, which is normally run at 535- 550 degrees max, is also safe as to the fumes. The fumes from the molten metal are not toxic until at least 1100 degrees.

I "set type" on one of my Linotypes 6-7 days a week, so I had a test for lead in my body and I tested in the "unexposed" range.

I think you could keep a Linotype slug in your mouth like a toothpick if you want to for the rest of your life without harm, though I can't fathom why you would want to.

Linotype makes good cast bullets but apparently is in short supply these days.

[Toolmaker51]

Linotype can be alloyed from pure lead, but those elements aren't high in retail availability. I'm down to my last couple hundred pounds of ingots. About half is old wheel-weights, which new material aren't castable anymore.
Anyone ever notice the backward letter 'N' in some Lyman molds?

[bruce.desertrat]

This times 1000.

Lead poisoning in humans is due to lead oxides in paint and tetraethyl lead in gasoline. (modern occupational health practice was basically founded by a woman who took up the cause of lead paint workers in the 30's). https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/e...ehamilton.html )

Mercury is pretty much only toxic when in compounds like methyl mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease because it can be taken up by our cells. We don't actually metabolize elemmental lead or mercury very well. (still does' mean I'll breathe in molten lead fumes or drink elemental mercury
:-)

Toxin concentration increases up the food chain, so being on top...is bad. Hence DDT killing top predators because it gets into the algae eaten by little fish, which get eaten by the bigger fish, which get eaten by the bigger fish which get eaten by the Bald eagles.

And of us older than 26 (leaded gasoline was banned in '96) have been exposed to enough teratethyl lead to demonstrably affect our cognitive functions to some extent. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...tudy-rcna19028

And yes, that includes me. It's a sobering through. Generation Lead is a real thing, and it'a not just poor kids in ghettos.

[the harmonious blacksmith]

So many terms come from printing.

Mind your p's and q's is only one, meant to tell the "printer's Devils" (apprentices) to be careful because the type is in mirror image.
Apprentices began by distributing the individual used pieces of type into the case (the compartmental drawers holding the individual letters, numbers, punctuation, spaces, etc)into their proper places so the typesetters never had to look at each pieces while setting the type.

Upper Case and Lower Case were the cases in newspaper cases holding the "capital letters" in the upper case and the "inferior letters" in the lower case. There were many styles of cases for job printing uses, but the news cases, holding many "fonts" of type were separated into the upper and lower cases.

"Cut to the chase" come from tearing down a printing form in a rectangular frame called a chase.

"To coin a phrase" comes from the various types of QUOINs, expanding clamping devices, used to lock the type into the chase. They're spelled QUOIN but pronounced COIN.

FONT, for that matter, is misused these days. They are using FONT instead of TYPEFACE. Technically, a font is a particular number of type pieces of each letter or figure of one size and weight of a singular type face, those numbers relatively small but type was purchased in those numbers and usually more than one font was required to fill a case with sufficient pieces of each character to set a job. Printers are fighting a losing battle on that one :-(

"Making a good impression" probably comes from printing but that's conjecture on my part.

[12bolts]

Not disputing this Bruce,

...And of us older than 26 (leaded gasoline was banned in '96) have been exposed to enough teratethyl lead to demonstrably affect our cognitive functions to some extent...

But surely location would have some bearing also? Those growing up in big cities as opposed to country towns? Even 3rd world places where pollution controls are markedly less, against me, (at least) growing up in rural Australia, with some very progressive controls in place and zero smog to live with.
Phil

[Toolmaker51]

'Font' also is the correct term for letters/ figures used in manual pantograph/ drag engravers. Each letter, number (many punctuation marks are combined) is a brass plate, cut as a ball nose endmill would, into the surface. That is what's guiding the stylus. They range in size, IIRC in pica graduations, pantograph arms adjusted desired size further by ratios. I'm sure they could be had in various languages and styles; only familiar with that resembling Arial, Times Roman, Old English.
Illustrated here on the left.



Illustrated on the right;
Another device, best known is the 'Leroy', worked nearly same way, but all the figures on a single plastic plate. They were used in drafting too, especially final inked sheets meant for lots of handling, or to be retained indefinitely. I bought an old patent application from 1948-1950; they are inked, sharp as day they were completed.

[bruce.desertrat]

Not disputing this Bruce,But surely location would have some bearing also? Those growing up in big cities as opposed to country towns? Even 3rd world places where pollution controls are markedly less, against me, (at least) growing up in rural Australia, with some very progressive controls in place and zero smog to live with.
Phil

Individual exposures vary; I was speaking more on the epidemiological usage of 'us'. but the vast majority of people were exposed to decades of lead to some degree or another, and the 'safe' dose is very very low.

Folks in the suburbs weren't living in the big cities, but they certainly were driving everywhere. And pollution controls like catalytic converters, etc were aimed at smog-producing emissions like nitrogen oxides; tetra-ethyl lead got mostly burned to lead oxides and went out the tailpipe as fine particulates. If you lived your whole life out in the boonies, you definitely got a lower dose, but if you lived around a gasoline powered vehicle. you got some.

The sad and infuriating thing was this was known from the beginning. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ted-180961368/

Ethanol works better than TEL to raise octane.

[Toolmaker51]

The sad and infuriating thing was this was known from the beginning. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ted-180961368/

Well, I'm sure their excuse was "Follow The Science", and turns out they publish excerpts and findings tuned to bolster certain targeted minds.
One side only has a goal; the other follows an agenda.