Lead Lettering

[Roderick Treece]

I've never scene this before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=offgpSr1 ... 0&index=27

[Patrick Mackle]

Rod,
When I went with Dave and John and Jeff and other letterheads to Scotland we walked through graveyards and I saw MANY ancient engraved head stones
that had hand chiseled letters that were studded with deep and numerous holes. My brain could go no further until I could discover why these carved letters had holes.
(It's sort of a curse when your brain veers off and you have to tag along until it's content and ceased to itch) I had to look through quite a few badly weathered markers before I found one that still had some metal residue. I did not want to deface the stone by picking out the sampling of metal. I imagined it was bronze as it was of a gray/green patina
and I imagined that the low temperature metal had been molten and poured into the letter forms. But your video shows it was much more laborious than I thought.
I have to wonder though, since SO MANY of these lead filled stones are missing their lead, did it just oxidize away in several hundred years, or were fires built around the markers to melt out the lead and then used in firearms for battles, or sold as stolen metal.
In my wanderings I stumbled upon the marker of the Author of "WEE WILLIE WINKY"
I would say gold leafing is far less labor than lead packin".
Do ya think there's Smith's Tip for lead leaf'n?
Pat

[Lee Littlewood]

Wow, what a find! I'd like to see his mallet a bit better, but the video makes the whole process quite clear. Here is a letter i wrote after spending Christmas 2008 in New Zealand, and some photos. Unlike what Pat saw, most of the lead stones I saw were in very good shape and I had to search for missing letters to get an idea of how they were held in. And then in around 1930 the lead just stopped, and you just had carved stones. So it is really great to see that the technique hasn't gone extinct.

..............................
Ah, but I saved the best for last. Where can you see a lot of true hand lettering in a small area? Until recently, a shopping area would do quite nicely, but the computer has changed all. So off to the cemetery, where, again until recently, all was done by hand - and in this place the old lettering doesn't get scraped off when a new tenant arrives. Granted, the styles are not usually too flashy, and the colors - well, there usually aren't any. But you can often see local styles of lettering or layout, like you'd see in small town signs awhile ago because there were only a few people doing the work and they often learned from each other. And anyway, it's quiet and peaceful.

In Wellington there is an old cemetery that they ran a freeway through, so they moved a bunch of graves and stones. And a major footpath runs through the remaining graveyard, with lots of joggers and downtown workers going through every day. So that may explain why many stones were so clean and legible. BUT the other reason is the technique used: the letters are filled with lead, which doesn't age much. That method was used in (to my quick survey) about 80% of the stones, from the oldest there (1850s) to about 1930, all denominations and all degrees of fancy.

(Example 1)

Very clean and legible, even if it has been washed recently. The metal is just barely proud of the surface, not like a raised or cast letter at all. So I looked and looked for an example that would explain how it was done, and was again surprised at how few were in bad repair. But here is one which shows clearly missing letters and letter parts

(Example 2)

The letters are carved in, but not very deeply. Holes are drilled in. Then what - molten lead poured over while it is flat on the bench? It'd be hard to add names in the field, and you usually have to be able to do that. But there were too many different letters, too many sizes for them to be pre-cast letters.
I looked for lead and found it in the other two cemeteries I visited, in Nelson and Auckland. And about the same times. In Nelson I found an 1880 stone which was signed "Jageurs & Son / Royal Park / Melbourne " (Example 3) so I think the technique was done in both colonies. Why not (as far as I know) in the USA? And how WAS it done? Fun...

[Lee Littlewood]

Hmm, methinks I pushed 'send' a mite too quick. Here are
Examples 2 & 3

[Lee Littlewood]

Aaargh. Here's the 3rd stone; fairly complex.