I got tired of taking the soldering station that I use to hold and clean the soldering iron back and forth between the workbench and the layout so decided to build a second one. Total cost was under $3.00 thanks to the second hand store that is about 200 feet up the street from the house. I started cleaning the soldering iron tip with a wet sponge back in the '60's and have tried other methods like the brass sponge shown further up the page. I don't use it at all anymore and have gone back to the sponge entirely. It is faster and does a better job for me. So onto pictures of the second soldering station. I'll keep the old one above at the workbench now. Went up the street to the second hand store and found the glass dish for $2.00 and the metal rack (not sure what it was used for) for 75 cents. Screwed the rack to a board and added a few other screws to locate the dish. You can still lift it out if needed. Shaped the end of the sponge to the dish and added a rock to keep the sponge from sliding back. Bet you can't guess what the rock is. . I have a red light bulb on the power strip I use at the workbench for the soldering iron and the resistance solderer. It helps in keeping from leaving the shop with the iron still on and the fire danger that could create. I wanted a 'On' indicator light for this but didn't want to use the larger bulb. I have a number of the 110v to 5v power supplies that are used to charge phones and other items. I allocated one to powering a red LED. I took a USB cable I had and cut one end off and stripped it down to the wires inside. It ended up being a charging only cable and only had a red and black wire and no data wires. I soldered the red wire to the anode of the LED (the longer lead) and soldered a 390 ohm ¼ watt resistor to the cathode on the LED and then the black wire to the resistor to complete the circuit. I also had added shrink tubing to the exposed wires while building this. A short power strip was added to the side of the station. Had it laying around but it would of driven the total cost up if one is keeping track of that. With the USP power supply plugged in the light comes on any time the iron is on and I could plug something else in at the same time if needed. I have a number of power strips at the workbench with one dedicated to soldering and the warning light. At the layout I added …. …. 110v outlets around the perimeter of the layout just behind and below the fascia. It will be very easy to now use the work station at the layout since I can plug into any of those. They have proven to be much better than dragging extension cords around the layout when working on it and I also have the DCC-EX Command Station, track power supplies and the 5 volt power supply all plugged into those outlets. More on them ( HERE ). The metal stand had a tab off to one side on the top. I drilled a 1/4” hole in it and mounted a bolt there to hold the spool of solder. It will be a good storage spot for it and I could leave it there but usually have the solder down on the work surface with a foot to two pulled out for use. The other soldering station works great at the workbench but this will actually be better at the layout. More on the first soldering station and other soldering tips here... https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Servo Control/page-7-b.html Sumner
Summer: Wet sponge works ... sorta. Every time you dip your tip in it your tip cools down. Go sponge free: Get a small bottle/can of paste flux that you can dedicate to tip cleaning. Now just dip the tip into the flux when you want to clean it and it does not cool the tip as much if any at all. You can use Rosin or Acid core flux for this as the heat makes it go away. Plumbers ( acid core ) flux has worked for me for *years*. For those that do not know, do NOT use Acid core flux on ANY electronic soldering. Later
I'm sure it cools some. I just wipe it on the top so it isn't soaking wet there. I usually take it off the holder, do a wipe and by the time I swing the iron over to what I'm soldering (electrical or rail on a turnout I'm building) it solders so I haven't had any problems doing it this way over the years and hasn't slowed me down. Your info might be a better way for someone so thanks for the tip. I know a lot of people love the brass sponges but I didn't. It was slower for me to use them. I have a name brand $60 iron but prefer the $15 iron I have over it and I bought 10 extra tips for it back in 2020 for $10 and still haven't used any of them. I feel that I solder quite a bit. Built over 50 turnouts and various electrical projects with the iron. I did buy a second one with a fine tip and a third one with a tip like the first one. The intent was to use the fine tip and one of the other two for electrical work and the other for turnouts only but I forget to use two of them so have only used the one shown for the last couple years. Sumner
I sometimes get oddball recommendations in my YouTube feeds. Here's one that popped up yesterday I thought was pretty cool and relevant: Something about those old training videos I can't turn them off once I start watching! -Mike
Wow those are some huge soldering irons! I didn't realize the used solder to seal up metal enclosures. I'm in the market for a really good soldering station. Metcal's GT90 has caught my eye. And they are on sale for a lot cheaper than normal (still expensive though.) But there sure are a lot of knock-offs of well-known soldering stations (esp. JBC) out there!
When in my teens I had used a soldering iron about half that size first shown in the film. Before I used it on cars I only saw it be used to assemble copper stills.
Andy: Take a look at Weller's. I have used the solder stations since 1987. Had WTCPS's ( I think ) almost all of that time and they worked flawlessly. Tips are easy to find and relatively cheap. One finally died and I went for the temp controlled one of which I do not remember the exact model right now. When I bought that I also got a couple of those foreign ones as sometimes I do not solder as I am supposed to and figured that if I trash it ... no big deal. The Chinese ones out of the box look ok, but upon further inspection they seemed somewhat light, flimsy and not build to last. I guess that you get what you pay for as those two were 1/2 to 3/4 of the Weller price. Don't remember those models just now. If you are interested, reply and I will go out to the Train Cave and find out. I did get a Chinese solder station for SMT and it works like a charm. Has good air flow and is pretty quiet - with a ton of chip nozzles to play with too. This one was one of the more spendy Chinese ones though. Later
Gawd, went up and watched that video. Frankenstein stuff! Do note the procedure though. Tip cleaned and tinned. Wait for heat ( imagine the room shook when warming ). Clean the mechanical connection parts and tightly connect. Add heat, flux, wait, add solder, wait until it is shiny. Start over with clean tip ( already tinned ). Note with the tip area she had, no reason to touch both the solder and the connection. Just do it! Some of the mechanical connections were pretty iffy though. Can you imagine doing this process with a coil and 40ga wire? You probably would melt the toroid along with the wire. Flame soldering was an art and still is. Do note that those boxes have been spot welded. Soldering just closes the RF holes. I had something like those irons when I started soldering at age 12. 2000W thing. Then went to the gun which was ..what.. 150W to 300W switchable ( with incandescent light too ). Got my 1st Weller pen style about 17. Fun stuff! Later
Todd, I am very familiar with Weller. Many of the lab techs used them at work. The shop techs used Metcals. I learned soldering on my dad's ancient Weller pistol grip (with the spotlight, and the loop for a "tip"). He used it to build/modify/maintain all his Ham equipment (vacuum tube stuff) with big terminals. When I was learning, I was assembling RS project kits, etc., and the solder joints were smaller, so the gun's huge loop "tip" was a handicap, and frustrating. But it could heat up a joint in a big hurry! My first 15 years as an electrical engineer were at a facility where engineers were assigned a lab tech who had to do all the soldering, assembly, etc., so I was a little rusty at soldering after that. The few times (later) that I soldered at work with temperature-controlled tips were awesome! When I asked a tech why the difference between what they used and what the shop used, he told me the shop had more $ to spend on soldering stations, whereas the labs spent more money on very high$ instruments, etc., but if it were his choice, he would use a Metcal station. He was an excellent tech, and I'm convinced he could solder very well with a screwdriver heated in a forge! Metcal is a US company with manufacturing in the US, China and elsewhere. Weller is all US, AFAIK. JBC is another very good soldering station manufacturer, but their stuff seems to be copied (in surprising detail) much more by cheap Chinese firms. One could argue that using a knock-off station, with genuine JBC tips/cartridges would be a viable choice.
