Soldering Irons

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Hi Everybody,

Having spent all morning working on mi tin plate model, this is a general beef about modern soldering irons that hopefully some manufacturer will take note of.

Why on earth do they insist on wiring them up with a short length of stiff plastic 7 mm cable? Takes all the feel out of the job and the cable will pull the iron all over the place when you put it down.

Even a big 100 Watt iron is only pulling half an Amp. They could easily be wired with 6 feet of 3 mm flexible twin core at no extra cost.

Working with a new iron. It's going to get rewired tonight!

Len

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

[CookieOldParticipant @cookieold]

Hi Len , I have bought a Antex XS25 from CPC it as a silicon lead and is really flexible £17.00

Dave

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Len,

For the work you are doing, you need a real soldering iron!

1" sq x 3" long copper and a pot of Bakers fluid

Gerrit it on the gas stove and get crackin'!

Bob

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that. Had a look at the Antex site and they seem very good. They make a point of their leads being flexible either in silicon or rubber. (Not plastic!). For some reason their smaller irons are more expensive than the larger ones. Have ordered a 100 Watt iron for £14.99 and we'll see what it's like. Their industrial range of big irons looks good but a 200 Watt unit will set you back £250!

Len

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Hi Bob,

I think you mean one of these:-

and this is mi small one, have seen it, done it and have the tea shirt, book and film! The problem is that mi misses objects to mi paraffin blowlamp in the kitchen!

Joking apart, they do have a place and when you need to get some serious heat into a job, they do work!

Len

[Geoff SleathParticipant @geoffsleath41411]

I worked at GEC, Coventry in the early 1960s. They were wiring Post Office telephone exchange racks in an area near me. Those with 100s of relays and uniselectors that were used then. They were all soldered with gas heated irons like Len's. They must have been very good because sound connections were paramount and there was a strict inspection regime.

It puzzled m as I'd been using electric irons since I was 11 or 12 years old to build radio receivers and repair TVs. Never used a primitive device like those but I'd made one in metalwork at school.

Geoff

[pete grahamParticipant @petegraham99294]

Hi, everybody above.I

I have just read the interesting comments about soldering iron power leads and totally agree ……close to exasperation once, I used a minil vice fixed to the edge of my small work table to hold the iron. Not a perfect solution and probably one of a few but at least it stopped everything being swept overboard.

Twenty , thirty years I used to do a lot of soldering , some of it involving quite large brass and steel components and never had much trouble at all with the techniques using multicore solders and fluxite . But it seems that the "chemistry" of soldering has now changed I was talking recently to a technician in a radio and electronic workshop and he told me that the, now legal, formulation of solder without a lead constituent had created some difficulties with tinning and running… I certainly found this just a while ago in doing a small wiring job.

Any comments

Pete.

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Yes, Pete. I've been assembling model boat electronic units onto printed and tinned copper PCBs since 2007. I haven't counted the number of soldered joints I've made in that time but I suspect it would run well into six figures and likely seven. I've had to use lead-free solder from Day #1 – chiefly Wartons' brands. After an initial disilke I've got used to its little ways. You do need more heat than the old lead-based stuff, so I bought a Weller soldering station and WSP80 iron with a silicon flex. It was horribly expensive c/w an Antex but quite definitely the best the tool for the job. I still have it and use it almost daily. It came with a "spring" stand which holds the iron and has a sponge which you keep damp to wipe the iron tip on. If anyone is looking for a decent solder station then I can recommend this one unreservedly. Weller Soldering Station

Mind you it's even more expensive than mine was in 2007, but isn't everything?

I had a little flirtation with one of those old copper irons when I was apprentice in 197-never mind. Great fun with stick-solder, paste flux, a gas ring and wired edges! If you were working on mild steel and you didn't scrub off the flux immediately you could almost watch the rust forming before yor eyes. I generally use a little gas torch and Bakers No3 fluid with tinman's solder for small soft-soldered non-electrical joints, and a Gaz blowlamp and Cupalloy materials for silver-soldering.

It's all good clean fun!

Dave M

Edited By Dave Milbourn on 01/04/2020 13:19:03

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

I have precisely the same model of Weller Soldering Station as the one Dave M. recommends, and while I would not for a nanosecond consider my opinion to be worth even tuppence, compared to one based on the experience and expertise of Mr Milbourn, I will nevertheless chime in to say that I wholeheartedly second his recommendation. Yes, it's ruddy expensive, but an absolute joy to use; takes a huge variety of tips, that are easy to switch between; heats up very quickly; has precise heat adjustment; and in general allows for very exact work.

In short, when it comes to soft soldering, it is the Apis's genua!

Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 02/04/2020 08:33:49

[pete grahamParticipant @petegraham99294]

My Dad , way back in the 1930s onwards was a model rail and steam engine enthusiast and I don't he ever even considered giving up his old copper iron and gas ring…probably thought these electric gadgets were new fangled..

I don't know what happened to his iron but I did "inherit" some chunks of "tinmans" solder, the sort that plumbers use with a blowlamp and I found that this worked a treat with my electric iron when "grated" into a tin lid and used with fluxite. Later, I bought some similar solder "ingots" from a plumber's merchant and and it is not the same stuff and presumably because presumably lead free. It does work but not guaranteed !!. I just wonder if my technique is amiss somewhere.

Pete

PS. How do I access this section of the Forum without having to go to search and type in "soldering iron!" ??

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Pete

If you start with the Latest Posts board then the titles of the various threads appear in a list, with the most recently posted at the top.

Tinman's solder comes in various grades, the difference being the proportions of tin and lead. The more tin it contains then the harder it will be and the more heat needed to melt it. If you Google it then you'll find a few sources of the various grades.

Dave M

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

It’s all out there. A recentish episode of the repair shop had the silversmith geezer soldering some lamp thing together with a hot air gun and v low melt solder!

Ashley

[pete grahamParticipant @petegraham99294]

Hi Dave and Ashley

Thank you very much for help. … "Latest Posts", obvious!. How did I miss that.

I have been poring over the Amazon soldering sections and much to see and thi nk about. I emailed Antex and they were quite helpful in finding the right replacement bit for my iron. Not cheap though.

Pete.

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Nothing is these days, Pete. The bits for my Weller WSP80 are six quid each. You might be able to buy a silicon lead from Antex. I'm pretty sure I saw this as an option for some of their irons.

DM

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Hi Everybody,

I can't believe it's been some 9 years since I last moaned about soldering irons. Nothing really seems to have changed much. I tried every ones advice about different makes and temperature controlled soldering stations. They all failed far too quickly and came to the conclusion that you just have to consider them like disposable hack saw blades. They are impossible to repair because of the cheap way they're made. Wires are still to heavy, tip coatings burn out quickly, tip retaining screws and collars seize up and the 'temperature controlled' ones are not. They might be voltage or current controlled but rely on simple electric theory to predict a temperature. There isn't a thermocouple in sight. Works for a short time but not in real world conditions.

If you are wondering what brought all this on again, my Weller 100w iron failed in the middle of building my Clyde puffer. Another 25 quid for a new one! So plugged in my 50 year old Henley Solon 100w and that failed! Time to think. Old stuff can normally be fixed. And it was, the subject of my next post that might help others. Also, it's not fair to keep moaning so decided to make my own iron. Also a bit in my next post with some pictures.

Regards, Len

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Its no good Len, you need a solid copper bit soldering iron that you heat up with a burner. Guaranteed to last forever!

OR how about one of those soldering guns, they heat up instantly so are not on all the time (as far as I am aware). Oddly enough I have a new set in a box but have not tried it yet.

Ashley

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Hi Everybody,

Pic 1 is my Henley Solon 100w iron albeit after it was fixed. Apart from the obvious cable cover on the handle I had no idea about how to take it apart or what the innards looked like. The screw in tip section was seized solid and had to be drilled out and still nothing would move. Had to be a do or die quick repair so the casing was split with the angle grinder and prised open. It all released and pic 2 shows it in bits.

The heater is two flat coils surrounded by thin sheets of mica in a flat tin box that sits inside the slotted copper tip. Pic 3 shows the heater in bits. The break in the circuit was the input to the first heater coil and pic 4 shows the errant wire. It was reconnected and the whole thing put back together. I was going to mig the casing slot back together but decided not to bother as it's very thick and when beaten back into shape the whole job was rock solid and the slot will just make life easier if it needs to come apart again (the last pic).

The whole job probably took less time than writing this post and taking the pictures. Still, it just might help someone.

Regards, Len

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Sorry, pushed the wrong button, here's pic 4 followed by pic3

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

and here's the last pic showing the slot in the casing.

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Sorry about all that. Get things wrong on this site as it is and you end up in a world of pain Did my best.

Len

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Len. Well done son, a workmanlike fix. Mig-ing the slot would probably have resulted in more damage.

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Thanks Ashley very kind. You might like this. A bit bold to say I was going to make my own iron so here are the 'acorn' bits, the heater and the temperature controller. Notice the heater has 4 wires. Two for the element and two for the thermocouple. It's a pencil heater used to heat industrial plastic injection die tooling. It's 6mm diameter, 100mm long and rated at 375 Watts.

The controller dispays the actual temperature and has an envelope control for switching on and off. Good up to 400 deg C. All of this (new stuff) was just chucked in the scrap bin by a company I used to work for. Now need to find a bit of copper bar.

Len

[Trevor Drabble 1Participant @trevordrabble1]

Len , For non-ferrous metals I have always found John Keatley Metals ( 0121 236 4300) very satisfactory . No connection with company other than as a satisfied customer .

Trevor.

[Len Morris 2Participant @lenmorris2]

Thanks Trevor. Had a look at their web site and they do look very good, particularly for bar, tube and sheet stock in a lot of non-ferrous materials. Their factory shop counter looks like Aladin's cave and I think anybody close to them around Birmingham must be very lucky. Unfortunately, for solders, fluxes and Irons are shown as 'not being available on line' so I don't think ordering from them would be a slick process.

Len

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