Re: Learning To Do Electrical Soldering

[Jim Davis <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

On Thursday, April 9, 2020 at 12:53:58 PM UTC-4, Bob La Londe wrote:
> My dad was an electronic instrument tech in the air force, and later ran=
=20
> a side business (among a few) repairing CB radios.  He never taught me=20
> to solder. I watched him work a few times, and did a few solder jobs as=
=20
> a kid, but he never sat down and said, "Do this, don't do that, this is=
=20
> why."  My first actual soldering iron was repairing some camera shutter=
=20
> switches (or something like that I forget) with my Uncle John.  John is=
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> not typically a handy person.  He taught me about tinning both parts=20
> letting them flow together and making sure you had a continuous shiny=20
> finish.  With those limited skills I was able to do a lot of work.  I=20
> repaired guitar cables, fixed my own radios, and managed to muddle my=20
> way through simple control hardware, and got things done.  I favored a=20
> small lower power iron.  I really favored the low power iron when I did=
=20
> my first soldering intensive work for myself and others for fun and=20
> profit.  Making parallel cross over cables for PC to PC data transfer.=20
> Much faster than serial null modem communication.
>=20
> I never really liked those big clunky solder guns.  I own two of them.=20
> One was still in the cellophane inside the box until a couple days ago.=
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> Whenever I needed to solder something heavy I always went right to the=20
> torch.  Well, a few days ago my son volunteered to install a new brush=20
> assembly in one of my Milwaukee cordless drills.  Rather than splice the=
=20
> wires we went right to the trigger switch where my little pencil irons=20
> just wouldn't touch solder on the terminals.  I broke out the big old=20
> solder gun, and handed it to him.  Before I could make it thru the door=
=20
> back into my office he was saying it worked almost instantly and asking=
=20
> why I never taught him to use that before.  LOL.

Like father ---- like son ---- right?

We are our parents --- no matter how much we try to deny it. LOL

I started soldering all by myself when I was about 10 years old. I don't re=
member if I saw my father do it or someone else. But I had an idea how it w=
as supposed to work. I've always been inquisitive and experimented with thi=
ngs. When I was 10 I was really into electric trains. I had two Lionel engi=
nes and a lot of track from the two complete sets that I had. I very quickl=
y got tired of them going in circles and got a 4X8 compressed cardboard (I =
think) board to do a layout with trees and tunnels etc. Well, I got tired o=
f that too and tired of the trains falling off the tracks when they went ar=
ound corners. So, I got some boards, laid them on the ground outside and ta=
cked all my straight tracks to the boards. I attached my transformer to the=
 tracks with the  intention of gaining as much speed as possible without fa=
lling off on a curve. Well, what I didn't count on was that the transformer=
 power got less as the train got further down the track which caused the en=
gine to go slower at the end of the track. So then I added my other transfo=
rmer near the end of the track and had that engine zipping along pretty fas=
t. Then my friend George came over with his trains and we set them up paral=
lel to mine with the intention of having races. Since he had bigger transfo=
rmers, he would always win. So I did some reading and found out a little bi=
t about voltages and current and resistance and figured out that if I remov=
ed some of the coils from the electric motor in the train it would be less =
resistance which would allow more current and thus go faster. I disassemble=
d the engine and removed some of the coils from the motor and that's when I=
 learned to solder. I remember the soldering iron was a big old iron with a=
 huge tip on it. Something like a plumber would use back then. It had one o=
f those old cloth covered cords on it.=20

I won the next race but burned the motor out in the engine. It was smokin l=
ike hell racing down the track. But I won !!!!! LOL =20

Later in life I got a job at a company that was doing mil spec harness wiri=
ng for military planes using the old amphenol multi-pin connectors and went=
 for training to learn mil spec soldering and became the lead harness maker=
 within a few months. We had to hand tie all the cables with nylon cord usi=
ng clove hitch knots. There wasn't any color coded wire either. All the wir=
e was white with hot stamp codes on them. All cut to specific lengths with =
pre-tinned tips.

I just had to solder a land on a PC board the other day. It's like riding a=
 bike. Once you learn how, you never forget it.=20