I haven't kept up with this thread, but I have been using lead free solder
for over 5 years now. I had to jack up the tip tmeperatures to 700 degrees
in order to get good flow. A touch of standard external flux helps a lot. I
use smaller guage solder also, flows better.
I do keep standard solder on the bench. I once, early on, did an amplifier
repair and the customer who picked it up returned it sayng that the side I
had repaired sounded so much better he wanted me to fix the other side. I
had used the lead free solder on the repair. I replaced the lead free with
standard solder and both sider were equal and he was happy.
I do admit, I hated the lead free in the beginning, but I've become used to
it and can work around it's mlimitations. I do cheap a bit and sometimes tin
old joints with leaded solder before applying lead fee.


Stu