Shop Tips - Solder Iron Wire

RE: Shop Tips - Solder Iron Wire

D_Hersey — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:18:42 GMT

Industrial safety:

I had an old boss who in a prior life helped design the second firebombing of Tokyo. He told me that statistical process control came in with the war, that production was done by local reckoning prior. That study after study had been committed on the topic of safety, but then one day a radical theorist linked protection with quality. He found that guys wearing goggles were more likely to look at their work, that guys wearin' respirators would be more wont to stick their beaks in. . . One time in the early seventies, management finally successfully persuaded workers to wear their masks and mittens.

RE: Shop Tips - Solder Iron Wire

D_Hersey — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:01:54 GMT

So, in my imaginings, John's soldering iron cord rises from his bench at a slant. It is in a plane perpendicular to the front of his bench, going back as it rises. John takes turns showing his grandkids his new soldering rig. He asks them, having posed them normal to the plane of the cord: "How does the cord go in space?" John, being a good sport, has the cord pulled tautish. His attention drifts midway through the discussion when his grandkids again try to lecture him on the catenary curves, This leaves him feeling guilty and confused. I digress. . .

When he invites Lovable Scamp I in the kid replies: "Well, it seems to go about 57 inches back, while going 176 inches up." They learn 'em to be precise in Wisconsin. I spent a year there once. . . I digress.

Lovable Scamp II surprises and momentarily vexes John. He (gender-neutral) replies: It seems to rise at an angle of about 67.261626317173938577526941042655* degrees, for 185 inches."

Frisson momentarily bloomed in John's mind. His right brain was telling him that linguists would tell him that the two responses were distinct, imiscible, but his left brain was telling him a mathematician could practically object to neither, and yet the question had a single answer. Then his corpus collousium told him that this left-right brain stuff was over-simplified and unverified. And that maybe it was time to see how things were going in the kitchen. . .

===========

*Any opinions on the Win10 scientific calculator?

RE: Shop Tips - Solder Iron Wire

DAB — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 18:47:55 GMT

I learned very early to put the solder in my teeth so that I could use both hands for the soldering iron and the objects being soldered.

Yea, I know, the lead was probably bad for me, but seldom spent long hours just soldering.

DAB

RE: Shop Tips - Solder Iron Wire

mcb1 — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 18:32:44 GMT

Great idea.

My bench was slightly wider and I've tended to put the iron on the right side.

It limits your work area and is a nuisance but doesn't tend to drag across the work.

Thanks for sharing.

Mark

RE: Shop Tips - Solder Iron Wire

shabaz — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 21:59:41 GMT

Hi John,

Very nice! Your lab is great. Also how are you getting on with the AoE book I see there?

It is easy to forget how irritating the wire is, until every time one sits at a bench and starts soldering again.

A similar way to the boom that you mention is used in some JBC iron stands, where there is a tightly coiled spring of about 300mm length and 5mm diameter

egressing vertically from the side of the stand, which works but would probably benefit from being longer.

A straight whip type steel antenna wire (e.g. perhaps 1mm diameter) could be used to create a custom-length boom perhaps, with the end having some small clip or loop for the wire.