Resistance Soldering Techniques, Etc

[railandsail]

I recently aquired an American Beauty 250w resistance solder unit.

I'm using the tweezers in this particular case in the helix tracks. I was hoping the tweezers would hold the wire tightly to the track, but I find in a number of cases that the tweezers span over the feeder wire 'buried' in the slot between the rail head and bottom flange of the track,....thus not tightly holding the feeder wire to the rail.

1) First question ,...can a separate tweezer be utilized to hold the feeder wire in place,...like what appears to be in that video of Allan's first referenced? (http://www.wiringfordcc.com/solder_demo.mpg )
And hopefully that other tweezer won't get solder to the items being soldered?

2) Is there a trick to getting the powered tweezers of the solder unit 'pre-tinned'? It does appear often that these tweezers are not making a positive contact with the work pieces initially, thus the current is not flowing until there is a little bit of 'scraping' of the tweezer probes against the work pieces.

The tweezer probes also seem to get a dark coating on themselves that may actually be preventing a good solid conductive path with the pieces being soldered?

3) I do find that the use of flux does seem to help matters, but I had hoped that flux might not be necessary when using these resistance solder units?

[j. c.]

1 yes

2 keep tips clean, i use steel wool

3 any method of soldering needs flux

[richg1998]

j. c.

1 yes

2 keep tips clean, i use steel wool

3 any method of soldering needs flux

 

I will add to the above, like soldering with soldering irons, good soldering is an acquired art. Do not see this as a necessary evil.

Practicing on scrap material is required with new tools.I had to with my first resistance soldering station.

Rich