Very Annoying Soldering Iron..

[Ghwar]

Hey guys. I got a new soldering iron for christmas and just now is about the first time i'll be using it. I want to rewire a very old jackson I have laying around with no pickups in it..

thought it would take 10 minutes at the most and i'd be ripping it up..

thing is.. i've been struggling with this for an hour and I havn't even made a single connection !

The weirdest thing is.. my older soldering iron was 20+ years old, only 15 watts, and the tip was completely bent out of shape, and I could still use..

this new one is 40 watts.. brand new.. and still i can't get it to work! What is wrong here?

Here is the actual problem:

The solder will not even stick to the soldering iron! like if i touch the solder onto the tip, it just melts and fals off, it's as if when you are a kid and you are amazed at how opposite magnets will push each other away? It's like that.. it just melts and will not stick to it at all, and if i try to pick it up off the ground it just pushes the liquid ball of solder around! My old iron would pick it up easily?

Also, when i DO manage to get solder to stick to it (I have to use non rosin core to get it to stick) I can only get a bit on the tip, and it just seems impossible to make a connection.. what am i doing wrong?

[fookgub]

First, you should not use the iron to 'paint' the solder. Use it to heat the joint, not the solder. It sounds like your tip isn't tinned. Is it clean? You my have to use some flux to get it to stick.

Edited May 12, 2006 by fookgub

[Ghwar]

First, you should use the iron to 'paint' the solder. Use it to heat the joint, not the solder. It sounds like your tip isn't tinned. Is it clean? You my have to use some flux to get it to stick.

HMm..

So you mean I should touch the tip of the solder iron onto the peice of metal but not the solder itself? and then let the solder melt thru that connection? I'll try..

and yeah, it's tinned.. kinda.. the tinning won't stick either relaly

edit : I tried doing that.. i first managed to get the wire coated in some solder.. then i touched the wire to the metal i want to solder it to, but the tip of the soldering iron just will not melt the solder.. i can hold it there for 10 minutes and it won't melt it and when i use the hotter part of the iron (the shaft) to melt it, it still doesnt work.. if i let the joint cool off and then remove it, it's as if it wasnt joined in the first place.. it just won't stick

Edited May 9, 2006 by Ghwar

[Marzocchi705]

I say break out the old iron and finish the job.

Is it possible that the 40 watt is just too hot? Is that even possible?

[Ghwar]

I say break out the old iron and finish the job.

Is it possible that the 40 watt is just too hot? Is that even possible?

hey.. maybe man

but then the problem of the tip not getting hot enough to melt the solder doesn't make much sense..

however it has a 20 watt mode i can switch to

oh, and i can't FIND The old iron, or else I would use it

[Devo]

he he... I got conned into buying one of those cordless evilbay instant heat instant cool jobbies... knew they were too good to be true... worked (badly) for all of 10 mins then went out with a bang. Still use an old crooked one myself... or my Draper gun thing but its a bit unwieldy... im rambling... guess I added no usefull information here ... but since I took the time to type it ..... I guess ill press send and hope that not too many people waste time to read it... apologies if you have gotten this far and are still reading ... this post is going to end very dissappointingly. I need sleep.

[Daniel Sorbera]

I have a weber 20 watt and it's worked very well for many years, never had any problems with it.

[crafty]

First, try to use a piece of sandpaper to clean the tip, then clean it with some alcohol. Turn it on to the 20 watt setting and try tinning it at the lower heat setting. At 40 watts you're just burning it right off the tip.