vintage soldering iron and gun museum

[terminalgs]

some cool pics of old soldering equipment.   Check out the "Handmade Soldering Gun"

http://www.stevenjohnson.com/soldering/index.html

(I'm not sure which forum is the best place to  post this...)

[jjasilli]

vintage soldering iron:  Just the ticket for a vintage cap can soldered to the chassis. 

[kagliostro]

I like very much 

K

[PRR]

I just used a larger, 300 Watt, version of the American Beauty to solder a tractor fuse-panel.

[Willabe]

Now that's a soldering iron!


            Brad     

[eleventeen]

How I make soldered ground connections to a Fender steel chassis:


Find a 3-4" long (or longer) 1/4-20 bolt, preferably not galvanized. If galvanized, grind off the zinc plating on the head.


Grab the bolt in a pair of vice-grips and heat up the upper 1" in a propane torch, stop below red heat.


The head of the bolt does an excellent job soldering to a Fender steel chassis.

[PRR]

> If galvanized....

You should do the initial burn-off outside in a slight breeze. Zinc fumes are not good.

> Now that's a soldering iron!

Sorry, the picture is a mere 200W, my 300W is even bigger. Here's a you-toobe of a 300W in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytgoT87nK_g

I was working in the sun on a very warm day. Brutal radiation off that huge lump of heat.

[terminalgs]

that's a serious iron!!

solder a tractor fuse-panel.

you 've mentioned tractors..  what are we talking about?  I imagined farm and utility tractors, but maybe you are talking about large combine harvesters??? or are you old school referring to trucks as a tractor as in a tractor/trailer? semi's?

[PRR]

> you 've mentioned tractors..

Enough thread drift. Go to:

http://el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=17421.msg174503#msg174503

[vibrolax]

Here is the majority of my soldering arsenal, from left to right:
1) American Beauty 100W
2) Hexacon 10W
3) Hexacon 60W
4) Hexacon Stedi-Heat 4422 22W
5) Hexacon TC 871 300W controller
6) Sal Ammoniac tip cleaning block

The American Beauty was a $10 hamfest find, in wonderful condition except for a badly oxidized tip.  A 10 minute session with the Sal Ammoniac block brought it back to prime condition.   The others came from that auction site, each for less than $20.  A co-worker turned me into a Hexacon fan.  The XtraDur tips last a long time.

[PRR]

I just got a Weller WTCPL, green box with holder and 48W mag-stat iron and nice-size tip.

It heats. There's a hole on the box where something is missing. I feared it was a temp adjustment so I only ran the iron 20 seconds. Turns out it is just the on/off switch, the unit is fine as long as I unplug it.

Really needs a cleaning.

The same yardsale had a 100W utility iron in the wall-mount holder, but how many irons can I need?

[Jim Coash]

I still have the Heath soldering station I built from a kit in 1965.  It works but tips are NLA.  Jim