Excess solder

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

Fiddling around today w/layout and trying to remove gobs of excess solder from track joints.

I purchased a desoldering device from RS but it is rather pricey.

Q: are there alternate less costly means of removal?

Q: I don’t want to disturb the solder joint, just remove excess. Does reheating do anything bad?

thx

2

Reheating the joint will disturb it. I would file or grind the excess solder off, it is quite soft.

3

I use a (very old) solder sucker, which may be what you bought from Radio Shack. Some folks prefer the copper braid stuff that soaks up the molten solder.

Reheating does not hurt the solder; but, unless your rails are held in place by something else, completely melting the solder will of course allow the joint to get misaligned, as in my case. If you’re careful, however, you can melt only the excess and suck it away.

4

I tried filing it and using dremel cutoff wheel (which only heats it up and liquifies it again!)

I’m using a braid; don’t know about a sucking device.

Bob, my rail joints are only held together by solder, no pins

5

Radio Shack has one for $7.29:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CTLG_011_009_007_004&product_id=64-2098

6

Thanks

7

I use a de-soldering wick called Chem-wik. It sucks up the solder when heated.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/tmt/desbraidchem.html

8

At one time, I had a desoldering iron that I purchased from Radio Shack. The large assembly that the bulb was attached to meant that it took a long, long time, for the iron to get hot enough to melt the solder. When the iron burned out, I opted not to replace it. I did save the bulb assembly and still use that as a stand-alone solder sucker with my iron or gun.

I’ve also used one of the copper braids, and prefer that for many situations. I think that it does a more thorough job of removing the solder, and can fit into places that the sucker can’t.

9

I’ve never heard of a solder-sucker, nor a wick. Could have used one over the past three weeks, though!

I just placed the hot iron against the joint and tried to reshape the joint. It meant more time and frustration, and most often undoing an otherwise perfectly good joint, but with patience, I got a better one that, with a little filing with a steel finger nail file, came out just fine…according to the loco.

If I were doing a lot of soldering, I’d definitely invest in a braid-type wick.

10

k, wick wins; better spend few Xtra pennies than be a sucker

btw, found that sometimes the soldering iron will suck it up via capillary action or some sort of nonsense

but oftener than not, the solder blob will just rearrange itself somewheres else and bcome a worse pain

11

Just make sure you keep any solder shavings/dust/balls away from the animals.

Daniel Lang