Soldering: What’s the worst that can happen?

[danielravennest]

You'll probably accumulate a collection of various tongs and tweezers for handling hot things.

I picked up a set each of assorted precision tweezers and dental tools a long time ago. They are very handy for all kinds of small craft projects, when fingers are just too damn big.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Depends on the flame color. Blue indicates complete combustion, and thus a hotter flame. Orange means glowing soot particles = incomplete combustion = lower temperature. Copper melts at just under 2000F, silver at 1760, gold it depends on how pure it is. 14K gold is only 7/12 gold and melts at 1615F. Copper and silver have nearly the same thermal conductivity (how fast heat will conduct away). So if you have a flame that can easily melt silver, it should also do copper, but with more heating time.

 

[Arilynn]

My mother in law did a bit of stained glass work. She used copper instead of lead.

I didn’t know you could use copper! I’m definitely going to look into this.

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This community is amazing. So many fascinating people with varied experiences and POVs who are willing to share. Thank you!

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Dave from EEVBlog down under has some nifty tutorials about soldering.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Did I tell you guys about the time I stepped on a soldering iron? I think I posted about it here not too long ago.

I was like 11 or 12 and I was in the garage trying to solder a jumper wire across a burnt section of a trace on a PCB on a radio. Anyway at some point the soldering iron ended up on the garage floor. I -think- it might have fallen off the workbench and I decided to pick it up after I was done with some thing I was doing right that moment, and then forgot it was down there.

And this wasn't a little soldering iron either. This had been salvaged out of like my great-grandfather's old tools, so it was huge, it had a wooden handle and a cloth cable, and I swear the metal burner-tip was like 8 inches long, and it had this weird fat section in the middle of it, like if a tiny metal snake swallowed a tampon applicator. A BIG one.

Thing was HEAVY too, and the tip was rounded and like half an inch wide. In retrospect it prolly wasn't the best tool for working on a PCB? But it was the only soldering iron I had access to, and also I was a kid and I didn't really know what I was doing anyways, so I was just kind of winging it.

So anyway yeah, I stepped on that thing, while barefoot. Right on the swallowed-tampon part. Lengthwise too, so it got a bite of each of my toes and the whole front of the pad on that foot. I'll be level with you, it really sucked.

Owwie! My toes curled up just reading that!