Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:34 pm Post subject: Soldering?
Anyone got any tips on soldering at all please? I have never brandished a soldering iron in my life and am finding it quite frustrating.
True, my first project shouldn't have been to try and fix the bridge of my sunglasses with solder, but I didn't want to buy a new pair. I could have lived with a partially melted lens and a lump of silver solder that looked like a metorite, but the blumming things just fell apart along the old break when I picked them up.
Try again, I thought. I have a nice old 'Crescent Toys' singal gantry with 4 signals and all their rods still working. Seems to have come adrift in the middle in storage at some point. Quite heavy metal, but there is an overlap on either side. Should be a cinch to solder, I thought.
Well, the solder is less lumpy and much smoother now. Sadly, I propped the two pieces on the end of a pencil whilst I applied the solder and, lets just say, I'm not going to erase any pencil lines again with it. Still looked all neat and tidy. Left it for a good couple of mins to cool. Picked it up to move and one half came with me, the other stayed on the desk! Came apart along the same old lines again.
What am I doing wrong? _________________ The Thing (aka Hugh)
Anyone got any tips on soldering at all please? I have never brandished a soldering iron in my life and am finding it quite frustrating.
True, my first project shouldn't have been to try and fix the bridge of my sunglasses with solder, but I didn't want to buy a new pair. I could have lived with a partially melted lens and a lump of silver solder that looked like a metorite, but the blumming things just fell apart along the old break when I picked them up.
Try again, I thought. I have a nice old 'Crescent Toys' singal gantry with 4 signals and all their rods still working. Seems to have come adrift in the middle in storage at some point. Quite heavy metal, but there is an overlap on either side. Should be a cinch to solder, I thought.
Well, the solder is less lumpy and much smoother now. Sadly, I propped the two pieces on the end of a pencil whilst I applied the solder and, lets just say, I'm not going to erase any pencil lines again with it. Still looked all neat and tidy. Left it for a good couple of mins to cool. Picked it up to move and one half came with me, the other stayed on the desk! Came apart along the same old lines again.
What am I doing wrong?
Soldering only works well if you have the correct solder, the correct flux and the correct heat source. You also need to know what material you are trying to solder.
Electrical joints are best soldered with cored solder, which is a soft solder, preferably not the lead free variety. Cored solder contains the correct flux for electrical connections. It is a passive flux and won't cause any harm to the connections, you shouldn't need any additional flux. The most well known brand is probably "Multicore".
Your glasses probably needed soldering with a hard solder such as silver solder which is much stronger than soft solder. This needs a very fine blowtorch. When I broke the bridge on my specs, the optician repaired them for me, free of charge.
Signal gantry. Difficult to know what metal it's made of. Mazak maybe. Various grades, some will solder (white metal kits for instance) with the right flux and solder.
You also need a soldering iron that is suitable for the job. Too small won't supply enough heat, too big and it will be difficult to handle and get into tight spots. The shape of the "bit" is also important.
The pieces to be soldered need to be clean and possibly roughened to allow the solder to stick. Try practicing with some scrap copper wire, twist the two pieces together before soldering.
Always try to make a good mechanical joint first (eg twist wires together first) and then use the solder to "glue" the parts together. _________________ Have a nice life
If you can't say anything good about someone, say nothing
I'm using cored solder, which probably explains it. the in-laws bought for my birthday as I said I wanted a cheap iron to solder wires to the track on the layout and bits of track together.
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