Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

Perfectly possible if you have the right sort of iron.
I have an Antex 100W iron for my stained glass work.
I think that gets hot enough for heavy work like you mention.

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

Good luck.
I should try to avoid things like WW2 hand grenades, though.

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

That's a beast JB......
My soldering iron is a 15 watt Antex......But I can solder a gnats balls into the eye of a needle without burning the hairs off....

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

This is a useful piece of kit when you are in the field. About £30 squid.

Portasol Gas Soldering Iron
RS Stock No.:
600-234
Mfr. Part No.:
10181060
Brand:
Portasol

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

Oh you need it for 60/40 solder and there's often quite a lot of soldering to do.
The iron wasn't too expensive if I recall. Presently only about £15, and it was less when I bought it.

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

Sounds good Besoeker, The bloke who comes to service our boiler has one and when I saw it I thought I've got to get me one of those. It would be great for soldering stuff in the car without the need for long extension cables getting trapped in the door, and burning holes in the seats......It has been done!....

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

That sounds like a very interesting hobby JB.....

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

When I first used a slobbering iron, it was whilst making a toy metal boat during my O-Level Metalwork class. The iron had a wooden handle at one end (the end you held onto ) and a gert big lump of shaped copper on the other end of a rod that you heated up in a small firebox.

Gas smoldering irons are great. They run on liquified gas, the same stuff that you put in cigarette lighters, and there is a striker built into the cap so you don't need to carry matches or a separate lighter.
Mine has a removeable tip that can be replaced with a tiny blowtorch attachment, and a little wire stand to rest it on when you are setting the job up or letting the iron cool down.

You can also get rechargeable irons as well. These were for working where intrinsically safe devices had to be used such as near fuel and gas supply lines, or on static sensitive devices (SSD).
We also had mains or 110V irons with an earthed tip for SSD work, and ones where you could dial up the temperature you needed depending on the solder melting temperature.
Then we went over to lead-free solder which personally I found harder to use because it didn't seem to run as well.

I'm surprised anyone is using a gas powered iron around a boiler (unless it is all electric or it's being used outside) instead of a battery powered one.

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

I still have a small (mains electric) soldering iron somewhere, which I have used for small jobs like electrical connections.

I also have a gas soldering iron, as you described which runs on cigarette lighter gas, though I'm not sure where it is now. Its only disadvantage is that the gas runs out! Of course, having a can of gas handy, it can easily be recharged.

As for solder, I avoid lead-free like the plague. 60/40 solder is the best in my book: easy to use and strong when cold. In fact, it is very similar to organ pipe metal and such things have stood the test of time even over centuries.

Re: Foxy's Latest Project.

Radio Rentals supplied us with Adcola soldering irons. 240v for the houses, 24v for benchwork. They worked well.

When I went self-employed, I bought a Weller mains iron for use in houses, plus a soldering gun. The soldering gun was used for soldering that needed quite a bit of heat and where delicate soldering wasn't required.

It had another use too. The transformer in it has quite a strong magnetic field. Strong enough to use for degaussing the shadow mask in colour TV CRTs. The idea was to do the degaussing fairly quickly before the soldering tip glowed red hot. I've still got that soldering gun but don't use it for either purpose anymore.

For bench work, I had a Weller TCP 24v 50w iron. A super iron it was too. A magnetic bit that gave it temperature control. It worked for many years but went wrong shortly after I stopped work. I bought an Antex 660TC to replace it. It has its own transformer with a temperature dial. I use this now and it's OK but not a patch on the Weller.

Solder wick was/is essential for repair work. You had to be able to remove components without damaging the print and solder wick was the stuff to use. For solder removal that didn't need so much care, there was the solder sucker. It got nicknamed the 'foop-tah' because of the noise in made when sucking the solder up.

Good soldering and print care is a skill all on its own don't you think?

Edit: Forgot to mention flux remover to make the print look nice after changing components.