In article ,
john wrote:

I must have lived a sheltered life because onmy Antex soldering iron I
have always used a standard chisel tip.

Recently I saw a lot of cheap soldering irons in the stores with a
conical tip. I can't think I'd ever want to use that shape but someone
must be doing so. What use does a concial tip have for
electrical/electronic work?

We've used conical tips almost exclusively in 25 years of production
soldering. The biggest advantage to conical over spade in that
environment is speed: You don't have to think about tip rotational
orientation.