Soldering Iron Recommendation

[Chris glover]

I bought the American beauty super chief 250. I don't think it's on international tooling so website but it was what they recommended to me for the thickness of brass I was using.I have had no trouble soldering upto 2mm brass and the duty cycle hasn't been an issue.The unit comes with tweezers but the probe is used for the vast majority of operations.I would recommend buying spare tips for both.
Chris

[Adrian Harris]

Is that 110 volts or 240 volts ?

I picked up a cheap unit on eBay, on the basis that if I'm no good at it, there wasn't too much investment

Adrian.

[Chris glover]

240v
Chris

[davidwilkins]

Gentleman,

Again many thanks for all your input it is very much appreciated. The information you have provided me with has helped me understand what the RSU is all about and I am now sure that this is what I should aim for.

Now comes the difficult part; having a board meeting with the minister of finance to try purchase one of these RSU. There might be a delay in the purchase as I have just purchased a proxxon band saw from Axminster. (if anyone is interested Axminster has a sale on proxxon tools, 12 percent off)

Regards

David

[John Fitzsimons]

See below link to the one I gor a few weeks ago. Quite happy with it. Replacement tips and even spare irons are cheap so you can change the iron rather than wait for tip to cool down. Heats to max temp very quickly and with the digital display you can see when it has reached the desired temp. Good price at the moment.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/60w-professio ... tion-a55kj

I have a couple of the small gas irons including the dremel but tend not to use them.

I must have a look into resistance soldering. Looks interesting.

[Fabrice Le Roux]

Hi David,

Lack of cleanliness, too much or too little heat, and flux problems have caused me grief from time to time with both soft and hard soldering jobs. It is rarely down to the "wrong" soldering hardware.

I built a kick-ass resistance soldering machine from a 500w lighting transformer and a Variac from RS. Works a treat but is quite capable of vaporizing parts if not treated with respect. A useful device as it allows parts to be soldered close together without heating the whole assembly up again, risking collapse. The alternative strategy is to step solder, but that takes careful planning and temperature control.

A variable temp solder station from Maplins does most of the jobs from 80 deg C up to 400 deg C. Proxoon do a dinky little hot-air gun that goes up to 500 deg C, but the parts have to be well fixed down to a base. Above that, I use butane torches of various sizes.

We all learn as we go along. I am now a big fan of soft and hard silver paint/pastes. Jewellery suppliers have handy tools not seen in model engineering circles. Recently I picked up a ceramic honeycomb plate with stainless and ceramic retaining pins. It sits in stainless tray atop a lazy-susan bearing so I can work on small sub assembles from any angle.

My last tip is that, when either glueing or soldering, it always worth pinning or screwing the part as well. There is only one thing more irritating than seeing a bent part on a model after a run, an that is realizing it is MIA somewhere out on the lawn!

Good luck

Fabrice

[davidwilkins]

John, Fabrics

Thanks for your input, the main reason that I started this post was to try and get the best advice to decide what direction to go in a higher wattage iron or RSU. With this advice I am hoping to make right choice for the long term and not try and save a few £ and then wish I had purchased a high spec unit.

As you say there are usually just small reasons why something is not working as you expected it to and is often just a lack of experience. Now with the Information posted on this post I now feel I am in a better position to make a decision on what to purchase and know that it is down to me to learn how to use and hopefully this will allow me to improve my tank building.

Regards

David