I was soldering my track and I burned my finger. Are you supposed to get this little bump on the area burned?
P.S. I burned some of the ties so I painted them and then ballasted that area burned.
Well depending on how badly you burned your finger you could well have a nasty painful blister.
I like to paint my track anyway. As long as you are happy with the look then it is fine!
I once had one go into my leg…not FUN!
if you get burned like that use cold water fast to stop the cooking
ouch hope you heal up quick and get that solder job done
K
I guess you learned the hard way what NOT to do! Anyway, it does take some practice to learn how to solder, and a few mishaps will encourage you learn to do it safely. Don’t take this the wrong way, I hope you’re OK, or will be soon, and good luck on future soldering.
Brad
You guys probably have not been burned by a 100 watt iron job… ouch…
My god it hurts…[soapbox][banghead] I mean it really hurts. When an iron is close to 1000 degrees it does things to you that you wouldn’t expect.
James
Keep the wound clean, apply Neosporan, or whatever have you for burns, and keep a bandage on it. Give soldering a break for a couple weeks.
I got a painful burn soldering copper pipes over my head with a propane torch and just barely brushed the flame past my hand. Hurt for weeks.
It reminded the the horrible experiments during WWII, burnning pigs with a blow torch, to learn how to treat sailors that were burned in bombed ships.
Anyway, if you have to hold the soldering gun on the rail long enough to melt the ties, either the gun/iron you’re using is too low a wattage, the tip is dirty or the rail wasn’t preped or a combination of. The gun or iron should be over 100 watt, the tip cleaned and tinned, the rail cleaned, scuffed and tinned. Then the joint can be quickly made just by melting the solder on the rails.
HAHA, nto laughing at u, with you, that is if u are laughing, because I burn fingers just about everytime i solder!! It HURTS!!!
If you do burn yourself, you need to cool the burn as fast as possible (less than 5 seconds). I use a very damp sponge for cleaning the tip and more than once, I have plunged the burnt spot into the sponge (just avoid any area that has been recently used for cleaning the tip and still hot).
Cooling the burn in less than 5 second will greatly reduce the damage. On several occasions, I have scorched the skin but received very little pain due to cooling it off fast.
Daniel Lang
Having spent a summer in the engine spaces of a steam-powered ship, I have learned to be VERY respectful of anything with a hot surface, hot liquids and, especially, escaping steam!
The first aid aspects have already been pretty well covered, so I’ll just mention my own soldering technique. I solder wire to flex track on plastic ties, and also assemble all of my own turnouts and specialwork from raw rail on wood ties. I very seldom burn a tie of either type. The (not so) secrets:
- Clean the metal to be soldered.
- Pre-tin, where possible, by flowing just a bit of rosin-core solder on the surface to be soldered.
- Make sure the parts are making good mechanical contact, and that they will not move while being soldered.
- Use more, rather than less, flux. I add a dab of rosin paste flux and use rosin-core solder. There is no such thing as too much flux!
- Use a soldering tool that can transfer a lot of heat quickly. (a well-heated iron with a fairly massive copper tip is good. My weapon of choice is a Weller 350-watt gun.) The pencil-tipped tool used for electronic work isn’t really suitable for soldering rail.
- Touch the soldering tool to the rail and wire, or the rail and joiner if you’re soldering rails end to end, touch with rosin-core wire solder, and get off just as soon as the solder melts.
- Make sure the pieces being soldered do not move until the solder has completely solidified. The end result should be shiny. If it looks dull and seems crumbly, reheat.
One thing I have learned to avoid is trying to hold any of the parts by hand. Doing so is an invitation to burns. Use weights, clamps (anything from wooden clothes pins to vice-grips) or whatever. You should have your iron in one hand, and the wire solder in the other. That pretty well precludes holding anything else.
Hope your burn heals soon. Happy soldering.
Chuck
NO YOU DON’T WANT TO USE COLD WATER! WARM WATER IS A BETTER PAIN RELIEVER AND LEADS TO SMALLER, LESS PAINFUL BLISTERS BECAUSE THE PAIN CAUSED BY BURNS IS HEAT ESCAPING FROM THE SKIN. P.S- You might wanna practice soldering and be a little more careful!
I don’t think you’re supposed to solder your fingers!
Sorry about the fingers, but with regard to the ties you might try using a lighter tip or not heating the rail quite so long. With the right tip and some practice you should be able to get this job done without melting/burning ties. The trick is don’t keep the iron there any longer than you really have to. As soon as the solder flows, pull the iron away.
Ron
I soldered a lot of my track and learned no matter how careful you are you can sstill get burned. Nowadays I use the cold heat soldering iron. I rarely got burned from the rail or the iron when using it, it was always after such as whn I stopped soldering and it was going to cool. Well now I dont worry about that. I alwas find tho during burns to use neosporine wih pain killer it helps alot, and he more bandaids the better because of the cusioning it provides if bumped.
I never took a break from soldering when burnt bu when I started etting stabbed by the rai (late night working on the trains) I did stop for awhile.
Sorry, but you are incorrect. Heat radiates at the rate of the 4th power from the higher energy state to the lower. If you use water that is closer to the heat trying to escape from your wound than cold water, the transfer rate will be less, not more. You may be right about warm water being more comforting, but that is merely trading comfort for efficiency in minimizing damage.
By all means, immediatly cool the injury to the extent possible, and although it may hurt doing it that way, it will result in less damaged tissue.
By the way, this all supposed that in the three or four seconds it takes to react appropriately to the typical soldering iron burn, the actual heat “left in the skin” will be continue to do damage. The damage is done, just like when doing the soldering, during the actual contact, and for perhaps a split second later, depending on how long it takes one to react.
Not to trivialize your pain, but I have an amusing story about heat and track. When I was a youngster building my first 4x8, I used a ton of PolyFilla to make my scenery. It was summer time and the basement was unfinished and VERY humid. It was taking days for the plaster to dry. While I was at school one day, my father dug out an old heat lamp and directed it on the layout to help it dry. By the time I arrived home, three of my brand new Peco turnouts were melted beyond use. Luckily I was using some leftover TruScale track with wood base so that was saved. My father was very sorry and footed the bill for the replacement turnouts.
Greg
Chuck,
Do you have a product # for the Weller 350-watt gun you are using and if so can you send it along.
Thanks.
When I solder my fingers, it never sticks. I’ve had much better luck forming a strong flesh bond with CA.
Well its better but I have this dent from it now. And when I realized my finger was on soldering iron I instantly took it off and saw the place where it was burned and it looked like melted plastic. it was all white. Thanks for the burn treatment information.