I own a hobby store in Minnesota and I have a customer that would like to try resistance soldering. He came to me looking for answers and after much time researching I could not answer them. I need to know if they are worth the high cost and if they are easy to use? What brand to get and what watt.
Google is your best friend.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=resistance+soldering+trains&btnG=Search
Rich
I used to work for a wire company and welded wire from 1/2 inch rod to .005 of an inch, yup you can hardly see it, in various alloys; steel, bronze, nickle silver, brass, stainless steel, even platinum. I thought about doing this method when I built my layout. In order to weld these metals the machine would be too expensive to justify the cost. Various metals all have a different heat range to successfully weld them. When in the process of welding them some get cherry red, while others are white hot and finding the proper heat range is difficult if not impossible for the novice. The machines we used were for the same diameter wire and can’t see how you would say weld a wire to track for the buss. First it would be so hot that you would most definitely melt the wire insulation and the ties.
Our floor machines were in the range of $5,000.00 each. The machine shown in the link has to be mega bucks not including the head which is probably in the $10,000.00 range alone. Not worth the cost for a train layout, just my opinion and experience.
Check out these guys. They have a link about six options up from the bottom on the left side. They can/have everything about Hotip units.
I’ve not used resistance units of any brand. I’m just in the gathering info stage and thinking about getting one.
Learn something new every day, thanks for the link. The price isn’t that bad, since it can be used for other uses, I will be researching these units, thanks, Jim
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-PBL-830 |
Hotip Resistance Soldering Unit 200 Watt Set +UPS |
$ 489.50 |
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1-PBL-831 |
Hotip Resistance Soldering Unit 300 Watt Set +UPS |
$ 519.50 |
Micro Mark sells the American Beauty gear. This is the manufacturer’s website:
http://www.americanbeautytools.com/site/
In short, yes, resistance soldering is that good for brass modelers. It only heats the joint you are soldering so you don’t inadvertently detach previously soldered parts.
I have an old industrial model that I bought on eBay, and it works fine.
There are resistance soldering sets available for hobby use, they run about $200-500, (one is advertised in MR quite frequently). Also available from Micromark. http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=80417A[](http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp)
When I worked at Dunham Studios we used one to attach feeder drops to G-scale track. Resistance soldering is/was more popular with brass builders, especially for attaching small parts or where several joints are close together as the area heated is very small compared to using a soldering iron. The process is similar to spot welding and the technique isn’t difficult to learn.
Except for brass scratch building and repairing brass models, I always found a soldering iron to be much more useful around a layout. Tell him to spend his money on more useful tools.