If you can't always find your solder, here is a tip. Take a foot or so and wind it around the cord of your soldering iron. Your solder will always be there when you pick up your iron.

I have always considered breaking pieces off a roll of solder to be wasteful. You wind up with a bunch of little end pieces that cannot be used, and they sometimes wind up in awkward places. Seeing co-workers do this irritated me to no end and I am far from being a neat-freak.

YES!

+1

Wouldn't it be easier to simply leave the roll near your soldering station?

That's what I do.

Better keep it where you can find it ,but hidden, any day now the environmental police are gonna go looking for leaded solder. Buy all you can and stash it carefully. Already banned in European products. Like cops testing crack pipes, they may start testing your tips to see if they have any residue of 60/40 on them.

They can take my soldering iron when they peel it from my cold, dead hands...

If you can't find your solder, unplug the iron and take a nap (in that order, Ja?)

On my work bench i have a sliding drawer to the right of my legs. Also have a reel type plug under the bench. I keep my soldering station and any other soldering stuff in the front of the drawer. When i am doing soldering i pull the door out part way out and plug it in and am ready to go. All my soldering equipment it right there by my right hand. Plus it eliminates all this stuff from being on top of the bench.
Stan Ski

My roll is always on a special place on the wall until I need it. Then it comes down on my bench and is used. After using a while, I can never find out where I set it back down. Look a while and back to work. When done, it goes back to the only place I can find it, on the wall. Always a challenge when working.
Jerry

Buy several rolls. Sometimes cost isn't as important as time/sanity.

If I have a bench that makes the spool of solder want to "creep away," I just chip off a small edge off one end to make a "flat tire" and that keeps it whe I last left it.

Chuck

Never have trouble keeping up with mine. I leave it on the spool, stand the spool on end, and twirl the solder off as I need it.

Larry

I attached a short post on the back side of my solder stand (rat shack w a 20/ 40 watt switch).
It's always there with the solder station and the added weight helps keep the stand in place. I pull the end to where I need and twist the spool to wind back when done. One stop shoping!

I'm with Mike. My "critical mass" seems to be 3 rolls. That way I can usually find one of them!

If you can't see the roll of solder on your bench I suggest you keep you work bench cleaner.

The picture on the right reminds me of some of the 1950's TV programs, where a married couple's bedroom scene consisted of two twin beds with a table and lamp in-between.

Antiseptic and hardly realistic, lol.

Looks to me like the guy on the right is reaching for what appears to be a claw hammer. Not really a good tool to work on a radio with . So maybe the good is not so good
Stan Ski

With all the grease they used back then it could have been stuck in his hair.