Jim Yanik wrote in
4:

Jeff Liebermann wrote in
:
snip
I once tried to re-plate my collection of burned out tips. I also
made some from scratch. The core metal is copper. On top of that is
a layer of iron, then nickel, and finally solder plate. First,
filing and an acid cleaning bath. I then slowly electroplated some
iron, in a ferrous chloride plus calcium chloride bath, onto what was
left of the tip. Electroless nickel dip followed. I also tried some
electroless silver. I then masked off the tip, and hard black
chromed the rest of the tip. It worked but wasn't worth the cost and
effort.

Yeah,that IS a lot of effort.

A new tip was considerably cheaper. The tip life appeared to be
dependent on the thickness of the nickel or silver layer.
Electroless plating just doesn't apply a thick enough layer. Silver
seemed to last a bit longer. I was thinking of trying again, this
time plating the nickel or silver layer.

I'm not sure if the Pace tips are copper-nickel-iron, or the more
common copper-iron-nickel. They may even be solid iron with no
plating, which would certainly oxidize and pit rapidly. That might
explain the short observed lifetime. I would check my Pace, but I
only have the thru-hole desoldering tip.

the PACE SMT tips I had at TEK were iron-clad,except for the really
expensive IC removal tips. Not usually a problem except on the tiny
tips.they would quickly lose their "wettability" and be terrible for
soldering fine pitch leads.At least with the plain copper Antex tips,I
could refile and retin them until they were too short.

I'd forgotten about tip problems. I just don't seem to have them with
the Metcals. I think I've only worn out one. The only other tips I've
replaced in 12 years are fine point ones that some gorilla "borrowed" &
bent. I also like the ability to "hot swap" a tip to a differeent shape
in about 5 seconds. My recollection is that the Antex tips could do
that, but some of the others (Weller & Pace) require unscrewing things,
which gets more exciting when they are hot.

Doug White