Crimping = making a mechanical connection by winding the wire or lead around the terminal such that the wire cannot be pulled out. Not three times around it; one bend, one hook. Cut off (if you are using stranded wire) as many/much wayward strands as you can. Ideally, you want the ENDS of each of those strands to be contained within the eventual solder joint.
"Pre-tinning" is a term I am making up to differentiate from the tinning that most things have from the mfr. The word is "tinning". Suppose you are using stranded wire. As supplied, any quality, non-Radio Shack stranded wire IS tinned. On the reel it will be called "tinned copper wire; and that is why it is silver/grey and not copper colored. You strip the wire, then most people twist the strands tight(er) with their fingers. Speaking in terms of the ideal, you are imposing acids from your fingers on the strands. The flux will easily overcome that, but not immediately. Thus, the act of you twisting the wires together forces the flux to work harder and increases heat time. Nevertheless, you generally HAVE to twist those strands together to get them thru anything but the largest holes...for example, on a 9-pin socket. Esp if there are multiple wires going to it. So, if you DON'T twist the wires with your fingers (meaning, you never touch it) but instead tin the stripped end of the wire with a minimalist amount of solder, you don't get the finger acid, the thing is now freshly tinned w/a little bit of excess flux on it, AND it's easier to stick thru the little hole in the terminal. The eventual solder joint will generally look better. If you DO need to twist the strands to get them thru a small hole, go ahead, then tin the wire, and you end up in the same spot. When you are done with the solder joint, ideally, you should be able to see most of the individual strands, eg; it should NOT look like the oversoldered "BBs" like on old Fenders. The green heater wires Sluckey posted in his pix are practically perfect: Small, minimalist crimp. Can see the individual strands. ENDS of the strands are contained within the joint. Minimal solder used. Shiny, not grainy. IF such a joint were cracked, OR, if you had that odd condition where the wire is encapsulated by flux and not really making a good connection to the terminal, you could almost certainly see it. (You surely cannot on a Fender BB) You can see the joint was not overheated because solder did not wick itself down closer to the plastic material of the tube socket. Excellent. And very achievable, with really not much more work, maybe even less work. Try not to touch the wire with your fingers.
Topic: Well Fellas....since I started my build over.... (Read 6399 times)