A rugged container in a letterpress shop designated for broken, worn, or discarded lead type and spacing material. Instead of being distributed back into the typecases, the contents of this box are sent back to the melting pot to be cast into fresh pigs of metal.
Heard on the job
That entire line of battered caslon can go straight into the hellbox.
Insider tip
Dropping a perfectly good sort into the hellbox out of laziness rather than distributing it properly was a cardinal sin for an apprentice.
Also heard as
- hell box