Soldering - a guilty confession.
Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 7:34 pm
Hi, I'm Andrue. I like soldering.
Like most newbies I approached soldering with fear and trepidation. My practicing did little to fix that but I eventually got up the courage to solder the minimum number of drop wires that I needed for my layout at the time. Five. They all seemed to work so I put the iron away and hoped never to use it again.
But last week as the final pieces of my layout were put in place I realised that with two sets of four sidings, each fed by a turnout from the mainline loop I was going to have to do more. A lot more. Sixteen drop wires and for some I'd be leaning out about as far as you can while still able to see the joint and pointing the iron back toward me.
Gulp.
But..I did what I do when programming. Just worked out the steps needed and plodded through them. The result (as with programming) was a damn good job. I had only intended doing a couple of droppers then knocking off to get over the experience. Instead I did all eight for one set of sidings. By the time I was half way through I was actually enjoying it.
I think that after I've done the other set of sidings I might just go around my layout soldering every bit of track I can find. I think there must be something wrong with me
For the record this is the technique I use (pretty bog standard I imagine)
* Clean the track with glass paper.
* Tin the iron, tin the rail.
* Tin the iron, tin the wire.
* Press wire to rail with iron.
* When solder starts to flow blow on the wire then withdraw the iron.
I think two things have helped the most. First is cleaning the rail so that it can be tinned. The second is leaving the wire out of its hole until it's been soldered in place. I think that having the wire constricted makes it harder to control.
Next step is to use terminals to aggregate the feeds (the sidings are on an elevated section) before running a single, thicker, dropper through the baseboard.
Like most newbies I approached soldering with fear and trepidation. My practicing did little to fix that but I eventually got up the courage to solder the minimum number of drop wires that I needed for my layout at the time. Five. They all seemed to work so I put the iron away and hoped never to use it again.
But last week as the final pieces of my layout were put in place I realised that with two sets of four sidings, each fed by a turnout from the mainline loop I was going to have to do more. A lot more. Sixteen drop wires and for some I'd be leaning out about as far as you can while still able to see the joint and pointing the iron back toward me.
Gulp.
But..I did what I do when programming. Just worked out the steps needed and plodded through them. The result (as with programming) was a damn good job. I had only intended doing a couple of droppers then knocking off to get over the experience. Instead I did all eight for one set of sidings. By the time I was half way through I was actually enjoying it.
I think that after I've done the other set of sidings I might just go around my layout soldering every bit of track I can find. I think there must be something wrong with me
For the record this is the technique I use (pretty bog standard I imagine)
* Clean the track with glass paper.
* Tin the iron, tin the rail.
* Tin the iron, tin the wire.
* Press wire to rail with iron.
* When solder starts to flow blow on the wire then withdraw the iron.
I think two things have helped the most. First is cleaning the rail so that it can be tinned. The second is leaving the wire out of its hole until it's been soldered in place. I think that having the wire constricted makes it harder to control.
Next step is to use terminals to aggregate the feeds (the sidings are on an elevated section) before running a single, thicker, dropper through the baseboard.
