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Friday afternoon trivia - WTF is this?


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With the busy trophy season now behind us we are starting to do some admin and also tidy the workshop up. In a seldom used cupboard, more precisely on top of it, I discovered this "thing", probably used by my predecessor way back when. Obviously, some type of guillotine but it has a weird stepped blade (or is it just broken) or where there once other parts to it? Its construction is cast iron and the makers name on the handle can no longer be read. Answers on a post card please, would be interested to know more of its use/history.

Wishing you a good weekend!

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It’s a lead cutter. In the days when printing type was set up by hand, spaces between paragraphs were made by inserting a thin strip of lead between the lines of type. These strips had to be cut to the same length as the line of type, and that’s what this cutter was used for. The stepped blade is for accommodating thicker strips of lead.

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