The basics of soldering.

[Angelus Lupus]

Congratulations Mandalorian, it's always nerve-wracking the first time you bring the soldering iron near your saber's guts.

[Novastar]

I just had my first soldering experience tonight, and I must say, it's a lot easier than everyone makes it up to be. I practiced a lot on some spare wire, but I got the hang of it really quickly. In less than an hour, I made my first solder and went on to make the basic LED hilt in Tim's tutorial.

So for all you fellow noobs, don't be afraid. Once you see how it's done and give it a try, it's not too hard.

Good advice, Manda! It's true that the first time you try something... it's harrowing. But some things are more in your head than reality.

It may sound strange, but... it's the same with something like acrobatics. You FREAK out the first attempt at things... and later--you get comfy and you're like "Hey... this isn't so hard... it's easy!!" Well, with practice.

[Tradeliphine]

I havent afforded myself the time to work on sabers any this week yet, I just got a nice pair of calipers too on black friday (among the tons of other tools I bought at sears) so Im going to tinker with my iron maybe tomorrow. Ill try putting a finer tip on, and measure my solder and look for a finer strand. Thanks for all the info/standards.

[Tradeliphine]

Well I put on a finer tip, about half the diameter of the one I was using, and I switched to a finer solder, again about half the diameter of the previous. When I let the iron sit and get hot for the first 10-15 min, then touch the solder it eats it fine, but the solder just builds up as a blob on the wire, it doesnt coat the tip, Ive never really gotten it to, and the tips just get dark gray. When I touched the tip to two positioned wires it still took like 15-30 seconds to heat them enough to have the solder flow. Ive watched the videos and read the threads, but my experiences are far from that smooth or fast. I wish I had someone locally to show me, idk if I got a bum iron or if Im the bum, I just dont know.

[Mandalorian]

Hmm, that's weird. My iron is getting darker from the heat like you described, but it still heats up in a few short minutes, then solders everything fine on contact. Sounds like you need to take it back and get a new one if that's possible.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Dude, just get a new soldering iron. There isn't to be any point in still trying to use the one you have now, if it won't do what you need it to.

You can't build saber guts with that thing, it's not working right.

And you sure don't want to try that one of the upper end sound boards. I wouldn't even want to try it on a Hasbro. Or anything, for that matter.

[Tradeliphine]

yea its a craftsman 45 watt that I bought less than a month ago just for sabers, so i can return it np, just trying to decide if I should exchange it (maybe it is bad) or get something else if the model itself sucks. I wish there was a place near me where I could go look at several diff models, but I dont know of any. I might just order a station like many of you have.

[Donnovan Sunrider]

I'm wondering if the model was intended for work on larger items, and thus not well suited for small electronics.
I'd try a different model personally.

[Tradeliphine]

Well I called around town, and found out what each store had in the way of soldering guns, and being the instant gratification guy that I am I wanted to buy local rather than order (that and I need to finish another saber by xmas) The best I found was at the RC/Train store, a Hobbico (???) 60 watt for a whopping 7.95. So I grabbed that and a pack of misc tips.

I asked the employee for some tips if he knew how to solder. Turns out he soldered for the military for like 30 years. He gave me several tips and pieces of advise/technique, some of which I have never read here or anywhere else I tried to learn from.

Now I am in no way bashing what everyone has offered. But whether these are things you knew or not, they proved very helpful for someone starting truely from scratch (again, these are from the hobby shop guy/former military solderer):

When you get an iron or new tips take sandpaper or files, and actually file them down. He said its ok to have them be rough, that they are almost always copper core, and you want to take it down to the copper, try not to ruin the shape of the tip obviously. He said that the coatings they come with is often lousy for conduction and tinning.

Before you plug the iron/tip in the first time wrap some solder around the tip, when the iron is hot enough it will melt the solder and tin itself. Wipe it on the sponge and youll have a nice smooth tinned tip. Tin it before you stop the session. Wipe it with a wet rag or on the sponge when its almost cooled.

I dont have pics but my 45 watt craftsman iron was all dark and grody looking, the tip would not tin no matter what I tried, any solder I tried to tin it with just melted onto a blob on the solder. No matter how much I tried to clean it it never lost the gray or would tin. This I suspect was a major factor in why it took me so long to heat elements, more often I found myself melting the solder onto joints than heating the joints and letting the solder flow.

So when I got home I did a test. A head to head combat. Two irons enter, one iron leaves. I took both irons (45 watt craftsman with fine point vs 60 watt hobbico with chisel tip) and filed them down to roughish copper on the tips. I cut lengths of solder, and wrapped one around each tip and plugged them in.

The craftsman was the first to smoke and melt the solder, it melted so smooth, it picked up the iron and twirled it slowly to coat the entire tip, it was a beautiful silver color, and it was sooooo smooth looking, I wiped it on the sponge and got a nice coat with a clean tip.

I put it back on the holder and picked up the hobbico as it had now smoked, it didnt smooth out as much with twirling, more my fault from imperfect filing not removing all the chrome. Wiped it on the sponge and again had a nice smooth silver color finish where I had filed properly.

I tried the new hobbico first, tinned some wire ends, melted some solder pads on junker circuit boards, soldered and desoldered joints, and for fun decided to draw with solder on the boards. The hobbico did fine, was a little unweildly with the wider chisel tip, but was melting joints/pads in about 2-5 seconds, much better than my old craftsman.

Next I tried the 45 watt craftsman with the fine tip. I soldered and desoldered joints, heated pads and tinned wires, I drew on the circuit board, it was very easy to control, it was melting stuff in about 2-5 seconds just like the 60 watt. I had done a much better job filing the tip on this iron, so the tip is much better tinned. Once I got things to heat they reheated much easier on subsequent attempts, I got it down to 1-2 seconds to solder joints.

On both irons I wiped on the sponge after every few solders, basically when the tip started to lose its luster i would retin it and wipe off the excess.

I am going to keep the 60 watt around for bigger stuff, but I now have my 45 watt working fine, and am seeing results much more in line with what you guys were stating.

Hope my comparison and tips can help some other noobies.

[Tradeliphine]

=( sorry for wall of text and double post