Metal for Stereotyping.
For every six pounds of lead add one pound of antimony. The antimony should be broken into very small pieces, and thrown on the top of the lead when it is at red heat. It is a white metal, and so brittle that it may be reduced to powder; it melts when heated to redness; at a higher heat it evaporates.
The cheapest and most simple mode of making a stereotype metal is to melt old type, and to every fourteen pounds add about six pounds of grocer’s tea-chest lead. To prevent any smoke arising from the melting of tea-chest lead it is necessary to melt it over an ordinary fire-place, for the purpose of cleansing it, which can be done by throwing in a small piece of tallow about the size of a nut, and stir it briskly with the ladle, when the impurities will rise to the surface, and can be skimmed off.
In the mixing of lead and type-metal see that there are no pieces of zinc among it, the least portion of which will spoil the whole of the other metal that is mixed with it. Zinc is of a bluish white color; its hue is intermediate between that of lead and tin. It takes about eighty degrees more heat than lead to bring it into fusion; therefore, should any metal float on the top of the lead, do not try to mix it, but immediately take it off with the ladle.