what do you think of this advice about soldering iron tips?

Flux, or worse yet rosin core solder is nasty stuff and should be avoided. We use the mildest water soluble flux we can get. Unless your tip is solid copper, it's only thinly plated. NEVER use anything caustic on it. Once the plating is corroded the tip is garbage. Despite what any manufacturer tells you, most original tips will never need to be replaced. The iron will be dead before the tip goes. IMHO

-- JK Sinrod

Unless, of course, it is a 900F tip, then all bets are off. ;

" Flux, or worse yet rosin core solder is nasty stuff and should be

I clean and cool the tips with a dip of rosin and solder. Been doing over 20 years, I've seen no problems. Rosin was a common stained glass flux. A number of windows (100+years old) I've restored still had rosin residue between the leads, with no bad effect. The problem with rosin, as I see it, is that it is hard to clean and a bit messy to work with.

Vic

Interesting hypothesis. Could we get some actual data to test it?

Here's my off the top of the head test scenario: One soldering iron. Three tips. Heat the iron til the thermostat kicks off. Feed solder onto the first tip as fast as it'll melt for 60 seconds and let it flow into a container. Let the iron cool to room temperature. Do the same with the other two tips with the same solder into identical containers. Get the net weight of each solder "casting."

Laugh smugly as you prove your hypothesis right.

Adapted from Yogi Berra's First Law of Thermodynamics.

Brady, do you actually believe the shit you spew? Or do you just get off on getting your balls busted?

Maybe, no probably because you dip your tips in flux. I use only water, and I have tips that last for years.

Yeah...but you don't use your iron at supersonic speeds, either.

That's why your tips get thrown out so quickly.

Oh I know it works, my issue is the god awful stench that burns the eyes and lungs. It's not mistaken for anything else once you've smelled it from an old window. That stuff can't be doing your body any good.

I love the smelland smoke of rosin in the morning.

I love the smelland smoke of rosin in the morning.

Personally I love women, but hate fish.... ; )

-- JK Sinrod

Please explain this...i get slammed for sending an OT message, but you guys are allowed to trash a perfectly good subject line?

where's the justice?

arlene JK@work wrote:

It ain't a perfect world. Get over it.

Well, for one, they aren't top posters, they don't need my help, and they're guys...that's a joke, on topic too! and you call what I typed "slammed"? and what is this "allowed" stuff?

nobody said you couldn't treat this place like your own private chat room, as long as you stay on topic. We take this shit serious. and yup, I don't tiptoe around much, but I don't in real life either.

It's called "street justice", it's very selective.

If you take all this newsgroup stuff to heart, you might toughen up, it gets real fun around the holidays when everybody is stressed!

i always top post and find it very difficult to follow when messages are interposed or i have to scroll down to the bottom. Being a dinosaur, when it comes to netiquette , excuse the question but why is top posting so bad?m

Michele, sweetheart, you can post wherever you want. Grumpy old Java can just get over it. ;

Isn't it nicer to follow a conversation when you get the question before the answer?

When you open the message body, the first thing that pops up is..... wait, let me scroll down and read THAT so I will know what THIS pertains to....

and, it is netiquette, from a time when this WAS the internet, the last bastion of OLD WAY of doing things, the good old boys club, and mostly because it is the proper way to do it, and if everyone did it, I wouldn't have a damn thing to complain about!!

You gotta earn it...and you ain't been here long enough...almost but not quite.

Scratch

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: