Resistance soldering

David Da Costa · Post by **David Da Costa** » Sun Jul 25, 2010 8:14 pm

Hi all, I have been thinking about buying some Resistance soldering equipment for soldering brass etc for model making.

Does anyone have any experience with this or opinions.

Thanks

David

Stephen White · Post by **Stephen White** » Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:10 pm

David

No direct experience but Fabrice put me onto the works of Gerald Wingrove who makes masterful car models. In his second book called The Complete Car Modeller he does a piece on resistance soldering. Worth a read.

Regards

Stephen

Lucien Runge · Post by **Lucien Runge** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:12 pm

Check out :

http://www.americanbeautytools.com/site/

They work slick as all-get-out.

Lucien

David Da Costa · Post by **David Da Costa** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:14 pm

Thanks Lucien,

Yes, they were the ones I was looking at.

David

Fabrice Le Roux · Post by **Fabrice Le Roux** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 6:49 pm

Hi David,

As you are in the US, the range of American Beauty transformers and probes are an obvious choice. Get the biggest you can afford, plus tweezers for small parts and a heavy duty probe type for bigger stuff. I belive Micro Mart (?) has a good mail order service for the devices and spare parts.

Unfortunately, the considerable mark-up of the official UK importer, compounded by the exchange rate, put me off. I wrote to Eric Soderlund, the MD of American Beauty, who could not have been more helpful, but he was only able to produce a 10% reduction.

Following Wingrove's description, I have built my own from a 12volt 500watt theatrical lighting transformer. I had some help from an electrician friend to make sure it is *safe*

. The transformer in a ventilated case was a freebie, the other parts from RS came to about Â£150, or a fraction of the Â£843 ($1260 at todays rates and $1600 two years ago!) I had been quoted originally

.

It is worth practicing on scrap before trying it out on expensive components, especially PE or thin parts, as getting the setting wrong can almost vaporise small parts! I have not used it on whitemetal parts at all as the melting point is very low.

Good luck.

Fabrice

David Da Costa · Post by **David Da Costa** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 8:01 pm

I ordered one of the 250w American Beauty resistance soldering systems via there ebay store which is cheaper than MicroMark.

I will let you know how I get on.

Thanks

David

Robert E Morey · Post by **Robert E Morey** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:47 pm

Guys,
I have one of the Triton brand resistance solderers sold by MicroMark and it works great. The American Beauty are cadillacs for sure, but why spend $400 if you don't have too. It has a high and low power setting for castings and sheet soldering. I recommend it.

http://www.micromark.com/Resistance-Sol ... pment.html

http://www.micromark.com/TRITON-RESISTA ... ,7890.html
Bob

Dale jordan · Post by **Dale jordan** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:54 pm

This sounds real good , is there any thing on youtube of it in action . Dale

Rich Stinchcomb · Post by **Rich Stinchcomb** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 6:37 pm

The price has always put me off from buying a resistance solder but the Triton one looks affordable. The recommendation helps too (thanks Bob). MicroMark has a sale until Sept 12 so now is as good as time as any for me to buy one. The sale price is $189.95 US.

Rich

Robert E Morey wrote:Guys,
I have one of the Triton brand resistance solderers sold by MicroMark and it works great. The American Beauty are cadillacs for sure, but why spend $400 if you don't have too. It has a high and low power setting for castings and sheet soldering. I recommend it.

http://www.micromark.com/Resistance-Sol ... pment.html

http://www.micromark.com/TRITON-RESISTA ... ,7890.html
Bob