I have read most of the posts on soldering that I have found in the Forums. My question to those who do a lot of soldering is witch is best the standard soldering iron or would the resistance type????
For soldering rail, either when building hand-laid specialwork or when attaching power drops and jumpers, my soldering tool of choice is the biggest Weller gun I can lay hands on. Second choice is an iron with a big copper chisel tip. The trick is to transfer a lot of heat to the site of the joint, as quickly as possible, and then get off before the heat can migrate to the plastic tie strip or wooden ties.
I've never used a resistance soldering rig. It might work well, but seems to require rather more prep than a hot iron or gun.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with lots of soldered joints)
I use for my track work the usual 30Watt soldering gun. Turnouts are soldered at the desk with a soldering station.
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
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I have a resistance soldering outfit and tried to do track work but the cords are short and it was a pain to move to the next rail joint especialy the foot pedal to operate it and it you have to keep the tweezers very clean to transfer the heat. I also went to my large Weller gun to do the track work with a few damp rags to keep the trackwork cool. I also found the nickel silver solder works great, Radio Shack used to have it I think they have nickel bearing solder that works great also.Have fun and keep your fingers off the track til it cools (lol). Jim.
Thanks for the feed back !!!! will go with the soldering station and the old stand-by Iron !!!!
I agree with the 30 watt for the track and feeders. It probably won't be enough for wiring to the Buss. I use a weller solder gun for that.
Springfield PA
I use a soldering station that switches from 20 to 40 and the 40 does the best work. Get some liquid flux so the solder flows into the joint quickly. It takes much less solder this way and does not require a blob of solder to be strong. Of course you should tin the wires before connecting, but with rails joints just add a little liquid flux then solder. To avoid melting the surrounding ties you could use wet cotton balls for heat sinks near the joint or buy some made for it.
John
Thanks to all who took time to post their ideas !!!!!!!!! as always I got some very good info :):):)
In the August MR there is a pretty good article written by Jim Hediger on this very topic.
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
Regardless of what type or size soldering iron/gun you use I feel a few of the most important things that should be done first.
A. clean the area or web of the rail where you are going to attach your feeders
B. Use a good quality flux and a good quality silver solder. I like .022 from RadioShack
C. Tin the feeder wires prior to soldering them to the rail I have found regardless weather you use solid or stranded wire when you tin the ends you get a much nicer solder connection.
I personally like using my Weller 40W soldering pen little flux applied with a micro brush to the web where you want to solder your feeder and your ready to go. I usually don't need to hold the tip to the rail for more then a few seconds. My sure fired tested measuring device of curled up tie ends always tell me I've stayed there a little too long. If your comfortable with using a large soldering gun with a lot more watts that seems to be the weapon of choice for a lot of guys I guess it's what ever you feel comfortable using and what works best for you.
I picked up a resistance soldering set up form my old company for a fraction of what it cost when they went out of business but for soldering track feeders etc.it's not for me, but the other night I repaired the tender on a friends brass loco and it works like a charm could never do the kind of precision soldering with an iron that you can do with that thing..
tomikawaTTFor soldering rail, either when building hand-laid specialwork or when attaching power drops and jumpers, my soldering tool of choice is the biggest Weller gun I can lay hands on. Second choice is an iron with a big copper chisel tip. The trick is to transfer a lot of heat to the site of the joint, as quickly as possible, and then get off before the heat can migrate to the plastic tie strip or wooden ties.
I use my 100/110W Weller gun to solder feeders to the rail and to also solder rail joiners. I've tried the handheld "pencil" types from 20W to 40W and always melted ties; seemingly no matter what I did.
I use pretinned wire when it comes to feeders, so that saves me a step as the pretinned stuff seems to go a lot better.
I admit to not using silver bearing solder. I note that Fast Tracks sells standard 60/40 solder with their kits to build turnouts.
Biggest thing to remember in soldering - Heat The Work.
It took me reading a welding book to learn that and actually grok it; I shudder to think of all the stuff I soldered as a kid and teen when I didn't really understand that part.