A while back I asked for suggestions on a good gun to buy. Luckily a collector friend gave me his Weller. He was disgusted with it as it ate soldering tips. I remembered that some rather have substituted solid copper wire fashioned to fit and this worked fine. I have done this also; it takes about 5 minutes to shape a length of 12awg to match the Weller type. I crush the tip end to resemble the original and voila!, it even seems to work better than the originals. How long this sort will last will be seen.

I do this as well in a pinch. Since the wire is not the same alloy as the Weller tips, it will not last as long, again depending on the use you put it to.

But, since a 3-4 foot piece of wire makes many "tips," the price is right.

My grandfather used solid copper wire since before I was born. A lot cheaper. Solder (tin) is a corrosive metal; it dissolves some of the metal it will stick to, and that includes your soldering iron. A good solder joint is a solid, continouus mass of metal with no oxide barrier or gas inclusion for the elctrons to jump over. And iron is used to make good tips. Solder sticks to it, but it dissolves slower than copper. Any kind of good tip that solder will stick to will dissolve some with time.

That reminds me. My nice temperature-controlled iron went on the fritz at a critical moment the other day. So to finish the project, I went down to Radio Shack and bought a 40-watt non-temp-controlled (i.e., cheap) iron. Got it home, turned it on, got it nice and hot, and attempted to tin it - but solder will not stick to the tip. The tip is gradually gunking up with dark brown stuff (presumably burned rosin) that I can't get off, and it doesn't solder worth a damn in those areas.

What's up with this? Is there something I should be doing, other than wiping the tip on a damp sponge frequently? BTW, the tip is shiny silver colored, not dull gray like an iron-coated tip.

Bill

I made a tip from #12 Copperweld about 2 years ago and it still looks and works great. The RatShack tips barely made it thru 3 months.

Some real old solid copper wire, pre WW2, seems to be hard drawn or a different alloy as its much harder to bend and might be a good choice.

Carl

Burnt Fingers: I may have some Copperweld buried somewhere in my piles. I'll keep that idea in mind. Thanx

Some of the early weller guns use nuts to fasten down the two "legs" of the copper tip. These nuts have holes in them, you feed the tip "legs" into the holes and put a bend in them about 3/8" to finish the mounting procedure. If tightening the nuts transmits a "twist" to the tip, the stress at the tip (weakest point) will cause it to break sooner than if the mounting can be done in a manner that avoids this stress.

Sometimes after mounting the tips, if some stress is evident, bending the legs around a bit, might "work out" some of the stress.

I believe the new wellers use a set screw and might not have this problem.

Charlie

Charlie- the newer ones with the set screws have way more serious problems! The tips never seem to make good electrical contact due to the nature of the setscrews or a little corrosion get in around the set screw and you end up with a tip that does not heat properly.

The older type with the tip nuts is a much better design and if corrosion does get in under the nuts, all you need to do is to back the nuts off a bit and then retighten.

Besides, what other products do you know that carry a sticker wrapped around the cord that says "Keep your nuts tight"? That has been a standing joke with Weller soldering guns for many years now.

I don't think the twisting action you mention would be much of a problem, because as the iron cycles between on and off, the constant heat changes in the tip would result in it being annealed enough for it to be quite soft, which you will find a used tip to be.

I've been using tips made out of #12AWG copper wire from a chunk of Romex for many years. Ever since dad came to my rescue late one Saturday night when I needed to solder something and the tip broke in the gun. And the hardware store was not open on Sundays back then, so I was dead in the water until Monday at least. Dad said to give it a try and as a result, I never looked back.

I have also tried making them out of copperweld antenna wire, but had poor results. The copper coating soon burns away and the steel core has a higher resistance, so it will not get very hot after a few uses.
Curt

That sounds like an inferior version.

Mine hasnt lost the copper in two years, stays tinned and works well as long as my nuts are tight..... The source was a piece of rural telephone wire that was rubber coated. The gun is a dual heat 100/140W I believe; the model tag wore away ages ago.

Carl

Curt,

The store I worked at as my first job, sold replacement nuts for weller guns. That was in case you wore your nuts out.

When my tips broke, I used to bend the two parts together, this contact would last for while, until you got around to changing them.

A guy at the Dayton Ham Fest was selling copper tips for the D550 for a buck each, I bought three.

Charlie

I never wore any nuts out, but I sure have rounded off a few of them with that cheezy wrench they included with the gun. I recall you could either buy the tips alone, or the tips with the nuts on them for a higher price back then.

To me, a clue to the nuts being loose or corroded was watching the light bulb. If it flickered, the nuts were corroded, and if it was brighter than usual, the nuts were loose.
Curt

I stand corrected, the spare nuts DID came with tips. I bought a few for the nuts in case of future need and I thought the "bend" in the legs would be more precise, less stress on the tip, longer life, but, it didn't seem to help much.

Flux, crud, solder or tin seemed to congregate on the "inside" of the tip, it seems it eroded away from there leading to failure. Keeping it cleaned out seemed to help. They all failed sooner or later.

I don't use mine anymore except when I need a lot of heat, so I don't go through many tips as I once did.

Keep your nuts tight, (and don't wear them out).

Charlie

You could try scraping with the edge of a razor blade while tinning. That sometimes helps. In the old days, sal-ammoniac was used to help tin the tip. Today, a tiny drop of plumbers water-based acid flux (the white stuff) can work wonders getting a stubborn tip to tin. WIpe it down with the sponge after you get it tinned, and feed it some fresh solder.

Regular irons will continue to corrode the solder and burn up the rosin, requiring a lot of wiping and retinning. Thats one of several reasons I use a temperature-controlled soldering station. It doesn't constantly cook the tip like that. If you were gonna buy a cheap radio shack soldering iron, that 40 watt one was the right choice, out of anything they have IMHO.

John

I still have a SCR light dimmer I built in '68, from an RCA manual, that I used to control the heat of my fixed heat iron. A light dimmer could be adapted to this purpose if you don't want to waste an otherwise good soldering iron.

As to the brown "gunk" on your tip, some mfg's put a thin protective
coating of "something" to keep the metal from tarnishing. I have found cheap test lead kits in the past, with "clear-coat" on them, very confusing when using them with an ohmmeter, to check a fuse.

Charlie

I use the 12 copper wire, as well. I tin it with silver bearing plumbing flux and silver-bearing plumbers solder...

I use a 100W iron and tin it before it gets to maximum temp. Wipe it with a wet rag. I use the no lead solder, don't want the new owners to get lead poisoning.

If my memory is correct, there was an article on a tip making jig for the Weller guns in an old QST, '73, or CQ magazine.
You used house wire and just bent it on the jig for a perfect fitting tip.

My tips don't make it a week!

Heat and bend silver bearing brazing rod to shape. File or grind down the tip slightly. That is the point that will get hot. The material is available from HVAC'ers.

On new or existing tips, flux and "tin" them with the braze. The temperature needed to melt the material is much higher than solder. If the tip is new copper or clean, one treatment is all that should be needed. This method can also be used to repair or rebuild pencil iron tips, even American Beauty. Of course this must be done 'off iron' as the heat needed would destroy the iron or gun.

Use electrical corrosion inhibiting compound (black goo) on the threads and ends. Available at most home improvement outlets.

Amen to that last sentence Wayne posted! Using anti-sieze compound on the threads shows that you care about your tools. I have wrecked several pencil irons of the Weller TCP type for failing to use this stuff and you end up breaking the heating element when trying to unscrew the siezed up tip from them.
Curt