a conventional 40W iron is constantly hot and is much less weight. even the guns take time to heat up and too much heat is likely to melt ties
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Sure once it heats up and then be careful when you set it down because it remains hot. The soldering gun only stays hot with the trigger depressed. Thatâs a lot safer.
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i wouldnât count on that. but of course laying it on its side will keep the tip up.
i think itâs the wrong tool for this purpose
the soldering iron is usually the first thing turned on when i plan on doing something like this
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Au Contraire! I think that it is the right tool for this purpose, and I speak from personal experience. It works like a charm. I first used the technique when I tore down an old layout that was built with Code 100 flex track and replaced it with Code 83 track on a new layout. I had over 160â of double mainline soldered flex track, over 320â in total. I used my Radio Shack 100 watt soldering iron to desolder all of the flex track and then continued to use the soldering gun to remove any remaining solder on the outside of the rails of the Code 100 track. I was able to almost remove every trace of solder, and then I sold the flex track in batches on eBay for a pretty good sum of money.
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Ah, the old Weller soldering gun. Mine lasted almost 50 years until the transformer failed.
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Mine worked extremely well with the new tipâif only I wasnât so clumsyâŚ