As one who worked for newspapers in the old hot type days, I believe to "pi the type" or "pye" was to run one's fingera down the first two rows of the liontype machine to finish off a line of type and get the machine to spit it out. Operators could not back up to fix a mistake so they "pyed the type" to get rid of the spoiled line and start a new one. The spoiled type went back into a bucket to be melted down and reused. As a metaphor I guess it would suggest giving up on a lost cause and starting over.