I was trying to practice soldering feeder wires to the bottom of the rail joiners last night. I had a peice of track with a joiner on it in a vise, the iron in one hand the solder in the other and it seemed like I needed a third hand to hold the wire against the rail joiner.
Is there a trick to doing this? I can see if you are soldering the wire to the side of the rail how it can rest there and gravity kind of hold it in place while you solder, but when the track is upside down with a joiner on it it doesn’t seem to work too well.
Excuse me if I am a little dense and missing something obvious, but I am just starting out with soldering and trying to learn.
KKEIFE
Along with the other great tips above, Are you sweetening the tip, getting the tip hot first, apply a bit of soder, this helps tranfer the heat from the gun to the part. If your soder is bright and not dull( poor soder joint ) and wont pull off it should work. I also test each joint with an ommeter for resistence, perhaps a bit of over kill, but had a time finding some resistence a long time ago and I just do it so I know its good.
Since your new to sodering keep this in mind. The silver in soder can cause what is called chemical Pnumonia (Sorry poor spelling ) so when the soder smokes dont inhale it, I take a deep breath just before it gets hot enough to smoke and slowley exhale blowing the smooke away, as somtimes due to space linatations the smoke will rise up into your face.
Just my two cents…John
I found soldering to the rail joiners just too fidley and much prefer to solder to the outside of the track. I tend to do all my feeder soldering in-situ also, rather than on the bench. This way I drill my holes for the drops with the knowlege of where underlying frame work is. Further more when I then drop the feeder wire down the hole I can put a kink in the wire and this holds it in place while I solder it. I also pre-tin the wires. Once I weather the track and ballast the wires are very well disguised. I tend to do a whole bunch of soldering at once, laying all my complex switch work and track for one area, then drilling all the feeder wire holes, then preping the feeders, then soldering in all the feeders. I probably do 20 connections at a time like this. It goes quickly in this sort of a batch process.
Another trick is to tin (flow a spot of solder on) both pieces before you try to attach them together. That way it takes just a touch of the iron to melt the solder and you don’t have to try to hold the solder as well as the wire. The way electronics techs have done it for over 50 years that I know of[:)] John T.
I usually solder my feeders and jumpers in place, so it’s a lot easier to use my third hand (aka Vise Grip pliers) since they just lay on the roadbed. Note that I use that humongous heat sink to hold the wire well away from the point I’m trying to solder. If you tried to clamp the wire to the joiner with Vise Grips you would have to use an acetelyne torch to get enough heat to melt the solder. I personally solder directly to the rail, so excessive heat is definitely undesirable.
I have the same problem, and the short answer is “yes,” a third hand would help immensely.
The ‘tin the wire’ trick has not been too effective for me. Worked about half the time.
What I do is A) tin the wire, B) make sure I have plenty of slack (can always be pulled down through the hole later) and C) Use an alligator clip to hold the wire to the track and the very base of the stripped area.
I then solder the top of the stripped wire, and haven’t had a problem with solder traveling up to the alligator clips.
When done and cool, I pull the excess wire down below the layout surface, and finito.
Casey
PS - There seem to be two very divergent schools of thought on this, but I use a larger (140W) soldering iron for feeders and rail joiners. You’ll get a bunch of folks claiming this is the best way to melt ties. I find the opposite, that using a low-wattage “pencil” iron takes too long to heat everything up and results in more melted ties… But YMMV of course. I use the pencil only for the most delicate electronics (e.g. circuit boards), even on things like my DPDT switches for control panels, I use the big iron with good results.
I prefer to solder my feeders to the bottom of a rail joiner because the feeders are are completely hidden once the track painted and ballasted. I’ve had great success with this method.
Slip a new and clean rail joiner onto the end of a small piece of sectional track and then turn the piece of track upside down and place it on a small block of wood and secure it with a track nail in one of the holes in the piece of track.
Using a piece of 20-to-22 guage wire, I strip about 1/2-inch of isulation from one end and bend it into an L shape and dip it into my container of paste flux.
I use a 45-watt pencil iron that has been fully pre-heated and dip the tip of it into the paste flux. I then touch the end of the iron to my solder and allow just a single drop to flow onto the tip of the iron.
Touch the tinned iron to the fluxed wire and the solder will flow onto the wire and tin it properly.
Now dip the tinned wire into the flux once again and then hold it to the rail joiner.
Touch the tinned and fluxed wire with the iron and it will adhere to the rail joiner rather quickly.
Allow it to cool for a minute or two and clean it up with a needle file or small wire brush.
Remember to use just a drop of solder to tin the wire because if you use too much it will leave a large bump where it joins the rail joiner and cause a mis-aligned joint in the rail when it is installed on the layout.
I have soldered to rail and joiners, I prefer the rail. Bend your wire tip in an ‘L’ shape and flatten the tip with pliers just a bit. I gives more surface for the solder to hold in tinning and a good surface for the rail or joiner.
I have learned to switch hands between tools very quickly.
Align the wire and whatever it is being soldered to (rail joiner, rail, whatever).
Apply heat with iron in right hand.
When hot enough apply solder with left hand.
put solder down and pick up Exacto <is that spelled right?> knife.
use knife to hold wire to surface
remove heat.
blow like mad or use now free right and to spray with bottled coolant.
remove exacto knife.
One has to be quick or some serious melt down can occur. Also pressing the Exacto knife too hard can cut the wire. But I hold the wire tight to make certain the solder is holding the contact of wire to the surface NOT becoming the conductor between the two. Seems silly to spend all that money for nice copper wire and then cripple it by using lead (or even worse that new junk they call solder) to complete connections.
If the rail joiners are greasy or waxy, clean them with a solvent. If they are oxidized, clean them with a little fine sandpaper. In my case, I had neither problem.
I use an electronic solder flux in a tube from Radio Shack, and smear a bit of this onto the bottom of the joiner. Then, using a hot, clean iron, tin the tip of the iron with a little solder, touch the tinned iron to the joiner, and add a bit of rosin-core electronic solder to tin the joiner. The flux does most of the work.
To join the tinned wire to the tinned joiner, clean and tin the iron tip again with a little extra solder. Hold the wire to the joiner, and apply the iron. The solder on the joiner, the wire, and the iron should be plenty to make a good joint. Try to hold the wire still on the joiner until the joint cools and hardens. If it looks frosty, you might get a “cold solder joint” and not so good connection - remelt the joint. If you do a good job, the joint will look smooth and shiny.
To clean the iron tip, I use a damp sponge intended for the purpose. A damp paper towel can be used in a pinch.
All good advice here, clean the joiner or rail until shiny, use rosin core flux applied to wire and rail/joiner, tin the wire, clean the iron, then tin it, then bring the hot iron to the wire while it is held against the rail or joiner. Rememeber this too, you said you were holding the joiner in a vice: If it is a large heavy vice, it will be too big a heat sink and you will have trouble getting the joiner hot enough. When soldering to track a vice grip applied where you don’t want solder to go is good, getting it too close to where you do want solder can be bad. I find the following an easy heat sink when soldering in delicate areas of track… lay a heaviliy damp rag on the area you want to avoid over-heating. Also, I find a solder gun (1400 W) heats quicker and is less likely to melt ties vs. a pencil iron.
Don’t fell bad I’ve have the same problem trying to solder feeder wires but after some trial & error I kinda got it down pat.I solder to the side of the rail with the rosin flux and tin the wire and presto it’s done.
I put the joiner on the scrap piece of track, and then turn it upside down on the workbench. I don’t use a vise, because I want it flat on the workspace. Then I lay the wire across the joiner. (Across works better. If you put it along the rail, it is harder to replace the ties because you have a long “lump”.)
The trick I use at this point is to weight down the wire so it stays in place. I usually just use a pair of pliers laid across the wire, a few inches from the track. This is enough to hold the wire firmly against the joiner. At this point, I’ve got a hand for the iron and a hand for the solder. After the job is done, I put down the iron and replace it with the beer. [(-D]