Look what I found growing in the garden. Scrabbling about in a pile of old pots while potting on tomato plants, a real printer's pie of miscellaneous type I picked up over a decade ago. Left in the garden five years ago when we moved here and promptly forgotten. Poor old bits, they were covered in rust (so not lead, but steel?)
I felt as guilty as if I'd left a kitten in the rain, especially as I had bought some bits and bobs of type from eBay when I was feeling a bit flush. I seem to have an almost complete lovely font, the one near the bottom of the picture. Only one of each, so limited printing use. I don't know what font it is, any type geeks out there? (edit - thanks Sue, it was indeed Windsor Antique D Bold - Font Head of the month award to you!) (further edit - No it wasn't! There has been some last minute contention and further investigation is needed...) 
Sue W, (who wonderfully has dusted off her wood engraving equipment and started printing again too) found a page about removing rust with tea. Well the least I could do was give them a cuppa after five years weathering it in the garden, so they went into a bowl of Co-op's finest and steeped for three days. It actually almost worked, and every time I changed it more debris floated off - amazing. But they needed some more in depth cleaning, so I've been going at them with wire wool, old toothbrush, white spirit and an awl, to prise out the crud.
A gorgeous decorative font, perfect for borders. S'cuse the grubby nails, I am a bit unpresentable in the hand department with one thing and another.
This little lot took about two hours to scrub up. I can't get the last rust stains off, if anyone knows a UK product which does this effectively, I'd be glad to know. 
Finally got my mojo back with the printing after the trials and errors of the other day. This lot worked really well, using a normal card stock - the linen effect of the pink sets was very pretty but not well suited to taking ink. My little lino block is getting quite flattened and cracked in places, I might get away with another batch, before it goes completely wonky. I've decided to turn them into little cards, for Etsy, (resurrected project number three hundred and seventy three). I'm starting to get the hang of bouncing from one thing to another, something I couldn't have done a few years ago. And it's such fun - which is how it should be.
'Printer's Pie' - a jumble of spilled type.
I took my graphic design degree for all the wrong reasons - I barely knew what it was, but I was in one of THOSE relationships where at the time you would walk down the street with a sock on your head singing 'la-la-la I'm a banana', just to please someone who's main concern was where the next pint and smoke was coming from, especially if I were paying for it. And he wanted to move to Newcastle because he had once played drums at a pub there and thought he 'might' like it there. And if I didn't go, (I had been about to apply to Central St Martin's in London) he was going to leave me - again. For the hundreth time in two years...*
So instead of the fine art or illustration BA I had aimed for, I found myself confronted with projects about leaflet design and biscuit packaging with the odd illustration brief thrown in. I hated it. I loathed it. And then I found the type room. It was in the early 1990's when the print and design industries were changing over from hot metal to Apple Macs, and all over the country trays of old lead type were literally being skipped, and melted down for scrap. Tales of colleges clearing out entire studios, and students in tears scrabbling in dump bins to salvage what they could.
But my college, in a city with a proud tradition of industrial industry, made a point of keeping its type room, complete with vintage presses and oily smellng inks. Before any student was allowed on one of the tiny, precious new Macintoshes, we had, at the very least, learned the basics of typesetting, leading and spacing using the old composing sticks and chases, getting our hands dirty and kerning by using slivers of lead, not tapping a keyboard. Something clicked, and running my hands over a page and feeling the indentations in the soft paper, I knew I had found some small comfort in this strange, cold world of design.
I entered a magical kingdom and learned to discern the tiny differences between a dozen serif founts, where Gills Sans was the acknowledged king of typefaces and discovered that less is often more; ornate is tempting, but simplicity is tasteful. Later, when I had got to grips with computer typesetting, I would learn to love Quark Xpress for the same reasons; books. My gargantuan, bottomless obsession with all things bibliographic. I had done a little book binding in my foundation art year, using my own pictures and stories, and if I hadn't been walking down the street with a sock on my head (as it were) I would probably have developed this and who knows, I might even have had a decent career from the word go instead of crawling up the cold and treacherous mountain slope of freelance illustration. However. One of the biggest wrenches when I graduated was leaving the type room. I sniffed its dear, oleaginous air one last time, and waved bye-bye to that part of my life. By then I had an understanding of what design was, and doing that hated course turned into the most useful of learning curves. 
Now I am glad that I have a decent grasp of layout, typesetting and composition, and it has shaped the way I illustrate. But I always dreamed that one day I would have my own type room and make my own little art books. It was always just that - a dream. Money and space - God, the space! I can barely fit in my studio to paint, let alone accommodate the paraphernalia that comes with the average printing set-up. And I realised also that I was in danger of spreading myself too thinly with all the techniques I was interested in. So reluctantly I packed away my lino cuts, my sewing machine, my needlepoint, my collage. I stuck to painting, which I was never that good at, but I had set out to be a children's illustrator and the rest seemed just a distraction. I knuckled down and devoted myself to being a half way decent painter. It took longer than I imagined. But in the last year I've been hankering to do a bit of printing again. I even picked up this old nipping press from eBay last year - the poor thing has been gathering dust while I waited for a spare moment.
And I think - I think - I finally have the discipline to juggle a few techniques at once. In between starting some new paintings and getting the new set of Red Flannel Elephant cards set up, I've been buying up tiny bits of decorative type, and even a whole minute set of Gills Sans. I cannot tell you - and only another type nerd would understand - the excitement this little block of letters gives me; EBay has become dangerous territory. 
Next time the pennies flow in I am hoping to get an Adana desk top printer - Lord knows where it's going to go. (Who needs a bathroom anyway?) Ideas are filling my head for stationary sets and note cards. With a fresh pile of lino and inks, and a virgin roller just begging to be inked up, I am finally returning to my old love, albeit in a Lilliputian fashion. It's going to be good to get ink on my fingers again.
This week's horoscope for Cancer - I hope I can live up to it.
This time represents the culmination of your efforts to expand the domain of your activities. There is more and more that you want to do, and you resent anything that narrows your freedom and limits your scope of action. The challenge of this influence is to be conscious enough of yourself and of what you are doing so that you can plan intelligently and work effectively with enlightened self-interest as opposed to pure selfishness. As long as you stay within your own limitations - that is, your inherent limitations as a human being and the limitations of your situation or circumstances - you should be extremely successful. The sense of timing of your actions may leave others amazed and sure that you are lucky. But really you have succeeded because you have a complete understanding of the situation.
from Astrodienst horoscopes, the best I have found on the net - if you like that kind of thing. *(it's OK, I dumped the rat a few months later and started walking out with my Andy, so in the end it was all for the best).
Hi pg - thanks for your kind comment on my very longwinded blog earlier!
I, too, love fonts (although I don't know an incredible amount about them. I thought initially you meant a font from a church, and I thought, she'll going to have one helluva job putting that back together again, until I looked closer.) It's a lovely one - a bit of a celtic touch - but I'm afraid I don't recognise it. My current favourite is Lucida Bright - and I also have a printing tray (empty) marked for Gill Sans, which is also a trusty friend.
Your printing looks lovely, by the way. Do you sell it locally? (I'm not very far from the Cotswolds.)
LBD x
What a wonderful find!!! Some of my favorite cleansers are the simple ones, like baking soda... or vinegar...baking soda AND vinegar. If nothing else, that one's fun to play with. Isn't there something called "ruby" that polishes steel? Or redding? A jeweler would know what cleans different metals. This is fun -- I feel I've been out in the garden, peering over your shoulder.
Jenny
Good grief it is late but I am so impressed.
Jewelers rouge I think.. or just whiting if you can still get it but I think tooth brusha dn elbow grease is the only answer. God all I find in my gardn is crud!!
They've come up really well! The font looks a bit like Windsor Bold, but I don't have it on my computer to check it out. I used to have an old Letraset catalogue, but it's been packed away or chucked. You should be able to find out on the web. The tail of the Q is often a give-away in look-alike fonts.
Well done!
I would suggest Bar Keepers Friend for getting the rust off, but I don't know if it's sold in the UK.
Love those little border scrollwork fillips; so lovely.
What lovely pieces, Gretel, well worth all the hard work.
As regards getting rid of the rust, there are products designed to eat the rust growing on car bodywork - can't remember the names of any at the moment - but they're very effective. A trip to Halfords might be a good move!
I do know that soaking in methylated spirits can help with rust removal. Also scrubbing with kerosene. What a find. I can see some beautiful cards coming up.
I am a cancer born the year before you. Didn't get any artistic traits so maybe I was born the wrong year. Do love to be surrounded by books though very comforting.
I love your illustrations I have noticed your Avatar before and never thought about where you got it from. So many talented people on this site I am in awe.
How excting, and funny, finding your own treasure!!
P.x
I think you seem to have tried most of the regular cleaning metods, but leaving it in Coke cola for 24hrs is pretty good.
treasure in the garden! All I ever find are weeds and once I found an old comb.
they look rather lovely with the rust, actually.
but another thing poss. worth trying - which I was recommended for getting rust off some antique Victorian cut steel jewellry - was to use size (as in decorator's size) with a copper bristle suede (shoe cleaning) brush.
might work without scratching?
WOW what a discovery...all I ever find when scrabbling around in my back yard is cat poo......
Another cleaning suggestion is to soak in brown sauce....
They sell bar keepers friend in the DIY shop in the village if you need me to pick some up for you...
sue x
Judging from the suggestions, you'll be brewing up concoctions, stirring them in a flask over a Bunsen burner and looking for all the world like Merlin mixing magic potions.
Beware of leaving anything in Coke for too long...in the classroom and just for fun, I'd have the kids drop various things in Coke and some things dissolved clean away.
Merlin aside, you must have felt like a pirate digging treasure...what fun in the garden.
Rust stains fabric permanently, so it might be fun to try and 'rust - print' words/phrases onto cushions etc.
Oh what a good idea - thank you for that, Janet Claire!