A superbly detailed article from Paul Howard explaining his approach to soldering photo etch and metal parts. He covers the equipment needed and gives a step by step guide on his soldering techniques.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Erm, what is rosin? I have been soldering for over 30 years and it was always called resin .... I think it may be a typo on the item.

No offence meant. Just trying to clear things up. I have also found you need a larger soldeing iron than the ones in most temp-controlled irons you can buy. May be OK for PE but not for large things like 99% of the stuff in my Snowberry. Keep up the good work.

One other thing, you need to keep your iron tip very clean. If it goes grey and cruddy use apply fresh solder to the tip and wipe it off, preferably using one of the metal brush type tip cleaners. Also, always apoply a good layer of solder to the iron tip when you have finished soldering. It protects the tip from oxidisation etc. And one other thing I just thought of. Everytime you solder something you leave a bit of the tip in the soldering. A small amount of copper from the tip is transferred to the joint. Inspect your tip regularly and file flat as required. Don't forget to 'tin' your tip after this. Tining means to apply a layer of solder to the iron tip.

It's a specific type of resin, Wikipedia:
Rosin

Rosin is the correct name for the material used to make flux used in electronics soldering. Hope this helps clarify.


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This is a great tutorial! Thank you for sharing Paul!

You've been soldering for 30 years and never heard of rosin-core solder?!! Your electronics store must suck! Or the Aussie accent messes with it, like calling Primer 'Prima'!

Jim

Really glad you find it useful. Hopefully others will too.

Paul H

Fantastic article! Thanks for sharing this, Paul!

Paul, thanks a lot for your excellent article. Unfortunately I didn't get the results that you achieved with soldering iron but I'm sure that I'm going to use your article as a guide and give it another try. I use soldering cream and Dremel Versatip torch to solder parts to a degree but not to your level. Especially for Eduard coated photoetch, did you try to solder them and if yes, do you clean the mating edges first or can you suggest anything for that. Thanks a lot again!

Cemal,
Eduard's photo etch and most others for that matter still have the etch resist coatings on them. These coatings protect the pieces during the etching process, but prevent solder and paint adhesion. The best way to remove them is with the fiberglass scratch pen or even fine sandpaper. Any area to be soldered has to be cleaned down to bright bare metal. Otherwise the solder will lay on top of the surface and not form a bond.

I have not used the dremel soldering tool, but it must be able to hold between 600-700 degrees while actually soldering to work for our purposes. Hope this info helps.

Paul

Thanks a lot for the information, Paul. I have just ordered a soldering station!

Awesome! Patience is a must, but I can try and answer any questions that occur to you. Once you get the hang of it, you will never go back to super glue, and the parts will be much much stronger.

Nice article, thanks a lot

Hope you found it useful!

Cheers
Paul H

I copy your tutorial - Thanks a lot. Is it possible to simply burn the protective coatings away with, e.g. a lighter, then clean up with acetone?

Lentorpe,
You can use try and use acetone to clean the coatings away. It will work for some brands but the acetone will not remove the surface corrosion on the metal that was there before the coatings were applied. You have to be be down to bright, clean metal for soldering to work well.

Burning the coatings away will also anneal the parts which is great if you want to do that, but it still leaves you cleaning the residue away to get down to clean bare metal.

Try both methods on scrap and see what works well with the equipment and supplies you have. In my experience, most solder joints that have problems are caused by insufficiently cleaned metal. Remember that brass and copper begin to oxidize in minutes not hours, and when an area is heated that time drops to seconds.

Hope this helps... Good luck!
Paul

One additional thing... Once the etch resist coatings are removed from the PE pieces in whatever means you decide to use, the oxidation/corrosion only needs to be removed from the area you are about to solder and that can be done with a few swipes of a white typewriter eraser or a fiberglass pen. We are talking a few seconds to complete for each joint you make. Not a major project or anything.

Paul H

Thanks!

No worries. I'd love to know if the info helps.

Cheers,
Paul H

This is a fantastic tutorial, and one I know I'll be coming back to time and again.

Some of Paul's techniques I have already been working with, but most of it are new ideas to me. It did occur to me that using cotton buds dipped in alcohol might work as effectively as the kem-wipes with the added advantage of being reusable. Haven't tried it yet, but intend to with my next PE soldering project.

Mark,
I'm glad you are finding the article useful!

One critical point though on the use of alcohol in actual soldering process; the autoignition point ( the point when a substance ignites spontaneously without flame or spark )for 90% isopropyl alcohol is just 750 degrees. Even if you have military or NASA grade soldering gear with highly accurate temp control, the chance of an accident is too high to recommend placing alcohol soaked materials next to a powered heat source. Additionally, should you have resistance soldering gear in use, even the slightest slip will cause a small spark that could have catastrophic results! Fumes from alcohol travel very quickly and if you can smell it, you are already surrounded by them.

If the buds are going to work, they will work with water. That is the only way I would recommend trying that procedure.

Metal cools very rapidly once the joint is done, so you clean the joint with alcohol within 10-15 seconds in safety. I'd also recommend keeping your alcohol container closed and separate from the soldering iron to prevent accidents.

Hope this helps,

Paul H

Very good point, Paul, and I'm rather red-faced to have not thought of that on my own. Water...so simple...

Mark,
I absolutely intend to try the wet cotton buds idea as a supplement to the Kimwipes. They might be just the ticket for soldering tight areas if held at the right angle with "helping hands". They won't hold a lot of water, but they may be great for really quick joints.

Cheers!
Paul H