On Mon, 2009-07-06 at 14:50 -0400, Jay Hannah wrote:
> No other parts of the printing presses were made of lead? ;)

Most other parts were made up of harder metals to withstand the
pressures. It is called a press; a lot of force is used. Lead is used
because it is mushy.

When the letter plugs are manufactured, the process is not exact and
they would have different heights. A steel spacer would only hold the
two plugs with the tallest heights; all the rest would be loose and fall
out when you turned it over. A lead spacer would mush when you clamped
it down, filling in any gaps. It will hold the narrower plugs with the
same force as the taller ones.


--
Just my 0.00000002 million dollars worth,
Shawn

Programming is as much about organization and communication
as it is about coding.