"N_Cook" wrote in message
...
Dave Plowman (News) wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arfa Daily wrote:
Also, instead of the normal Antex split skirt and spring collar, which
have a tendency to seize unless you turn them daily, this one has a
solid skirt, and is retained on the shaft by a thin sheet of metal
rolled into a tube, and inserted inside the skirt.

Yes - I noticed that. Wonder if it will be easier to remove - I destroyed
an element once removing the old type. (Through carelessness, it must be
said)

I have to say though, that it did tin very nicely. Be interesting to
see
how long it lasts with the iron idling away all day, as it does.

Nice to see another Antex fan. Still my favourite iron. Bought my first
one near 50 years ago - a delight after my Henley Solon.

--
*Rehab is for quitters.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Antex? do they still use mains powered heaters?
I gave up with them when CMOS LSI first came in and mains leakage
current/voltage destroyed a couple of expensive ICs while I was soldering
them. There I was using proper grounded disipative wrist strap and all.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/



I remember owning a mains CN15 that had a pink ceramic element shaft, and
hence a fully floating tip, that was specifically sold as being leakage
free. And Dave, I reckon you must have experienced the Antex unplated bits -
I'm not that old ! (although I probably wasn't much more than a kid when I
owned my first Antex). In fact thinking about it, the mains fixed temp one
that I keep just for very fine work, has a needle tip that I did not fit all
that long ago, which is unplated copper.

We used to use Savbit solder way back, when I was an apprentice. We used
Adcola irons in that workshop (about two points to the left of heated pokers
....!) and they had solid copper or copper alloy tips. As I recall, Savbit
had a small amount of copper as part of the basic tin-lead alloy, and was
very good at preserving tips. However, I have not used that stuff for
years - if it even still exists. The leaded solder that I use, and have done
for a very long time now, is a Multicomp product. Perhaps with all of this
lead free crap that we have to put up with now, the tip manufacturers have
done subtle things with the plating to try to make it more compatible with
the dreadful stuff and its aggressive flux cores, and my leaded solder no
longer suits. If you recall, we had a discussion about tip life a few months
back. I have stopped using my trusty old Weller Magnastat station, purely
because the tips were not lasting five minutes on a 14 hour per day iron,
and they were getting pretty expensive. I used to keep my Pace vacuum
desolder station powered all the time as well, but same story. With tips at
over seven quid a throw now, it gets turned off between jobs that need it
....

Arfa