Recommendations for soldering equipment

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi everyone,

 

I was thinking about trying out metal working on my builds, but am very much a novice.  I've read the tutorial and some of the threads on here to help give me a better idea of what the process entails.  For the equipment though (soldering iron, etc.), I was wondering if folks had recommendations on the tools to buy that would be most helpful for this hobby - manufacturers, model numbers, vendors, etc.  

 

I'm not looking to spend a fortune here, but do want to buy stuff that is of good quality and will last.  Thanks in advance!

 

[grsjax]

Can't really give a reccomendation although I would urge you to get a small butane torch as well as a solding iron.  Anyway Micro Mark is having a sale right now including a nice looking varible heat solding iron station for $20 + shipping.  Amazon has a very good Aoyue model 469 soldering station for $29.95 w/free shipping.  Nice thing about the Aoyue unit is that it uses standard 900M tips which are readily available.

Edited November 12, 2014 by grsjax

[Blue Ensign]

Mike, for the type of soldering most useful on our project I can highly recommend silver soldering. You can see the equipment I use and examples of my initial projects on page 55 of my Pegasus log. As a complete novice to the art I found it fairly easy to achieve reasonable results quite quickly.

 

Cheers,

 

B.E.

[russ]

I use a pencil style torch I got from Micromark. It is refilled with butane from the bottles used to refill lighters. It works well for me, but you can literally spend as much as you want on soldering equipment. I would recommend the smaller torches as they will handle any job you would need on a model.

 

Russ

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks guys, this is very helpful.  I am still a biit confused about torches versus irons, but I'm slowly picking up on things.  The warnings on cadmium I've seen elsewhere are very appreciated.

 

BE, it's funny, I was thinking about how to modify the stanchions, but forgot that you had gone down that route.  It looks like you gave me a very nice tutorial to follow - hope I can get results half as nice as yours!

[russ]

Mike:

What confuses you about torches and irons?

 

The soldering iron is used for soft soldering such as what electricians use. Torches operate at much higher temps and are used for silver soldering, sometimes called hard soldering. This is like what jewelers use. Soft soldering is akin to gluing two pieces together where silver soldering is like welding so that two pieces become one.

 

Russ

[Landlubber Mike]

Oh I see - that makes a lot of sense.  I remember my dad when I was little using a soldering iron - I figured the irons got fairly hot and gave you a little more control of where you are soldering.  After reading BE's soldering efforts, I think I'll try and go down that path as well.

[russ]

My dad also used a soldering iron in his electronics work. I tried it and found very quickly that it was not as well suited to modeling. A friend and fellow modeler showed me silver soldering and I have been using that for almost ten years now. It takes some practice, but you will pick it up pretty fast.

 

If you have not yet read it, I have soldering tutorial in the ship modeling resources section. Click on the Nautical Research Guild homepage link at the top of this page, click on ship modeling database of articles, and go to the section on materials and tools. The article is down the page a bit called Silver Soldering tutorial.

 

Russ

[WackoWolf]

Thank you Russ.

[Landlubber Mike]

That's a great tutorial, thank you very much Russ!

[rtropp]

Hi,

a very basic question.  Why is it called silver soldering?

Thanks,

Richard

[kurtvd19]

Richard:

It is called silver soldering because the solder has a high silver content. 

A more accurate term is actually silver brazing as the molecules at the joint change physical form and link with the silver solder and the other piece.  This takes considerably more heat than simple soldering.

Kurt

[druxey]

After you get used to a little more fussiness in preparing (such as fitting the faces of the pieces to be joined to each other) you will be amazed at the strength of a silver soldered joint vs a soft soldered one. It is well worth learning to silver solder.

[michael mott]

I just went to the page for the silver soldering tutorial to read Your article Russ and I found that the article for the silver soldering brought up the rope walk article. thinking I had pressed the wrong button i tried again and no the same switch , I tried the one above which is the one by Pat and the soldering article came up .

 

So my question is .... is it my computer or is the index miss aligned?

 

I am not complaining just noticed it.

 

Michael

[russ]

Michael:

I think they have the icons misaligned with the article titles. Shoot Chuck a PM and I am sure he can set it right.

 

Russ

[Patrick Matthews]

Torches: For big stuff, and for true silver solder.

 

I've given up (mostly) on jewelry grade silver solder, as it requires such high heat, and it always anneals my brass dead soft. Instead, I use TIX, a lower temp silver-bearing solder, but it's still much stronger than electrical solder. It's been great for all my modeling needs, and I can work it with a soldering iron.

 

Iron: Best buy I ever made was a good (not great) quality digitally controlled iron from Radio Shack. See my commentary at:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1372225&page=14&highlight=radioshack+soldering#post18112560

 

The iron has good quality tips, heats up VERY fast, is easily adjusted, it's been a wonder and a huge improvement over the cheap pencil irons I've used in the past... yet quite a bit less pricey than good quality pro equipment.

 

 

 

http://www.radioshack.com/radioshack-digital-soldering-station/6400053.html#.VJ3PWl4AHA