"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2008-02-09, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

You're welcome. Solder is one of my favorite metals. ;-)

And it was the first metal that I worked regularly.


I started at 10. My dad had a crappy old iron that was pretty bad,
but it did melt solder. Of course, the stuff that was easy to find in
the early '60s was large diameter 50/50 cored junk that was already dull
looking when you bought it.



Bad news. The irons are too old for them to have any repair
parts still around. The choices seem to be for me to make my own handle
for the broken one, or to buy a more modern version.


There is always Ebay. OTOH, a newer iron would have parts available,
if you have to depend on always having a good iron available. I had
three 'Loners' on my bench at Microdyne, and spent the first five
minutes of each day cleaning and testing them for tip to ground
resistance and inspecting the tips.


Now, where DID I put all those spare, NOS 175 Watt American Beauty
soldering iron elements? I know I had at least a dozen.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida