On Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:37:36 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

had a small repair job to do this PM and my beloved Weller soldering
station was left in my friend's garage as I've been helping him rewire
an old Avanti...

so I stop at Radio Shack on my way home and pick up the cheapest
soldering iron they have along with a small roll of solder... get home
and I realize the solder is marked "60/40 Rosin Core Solder." Now it
doesn't say what the 60 and the 40 stand for... but... I just realized
that this is the first time i've seen same in years... have the rules
been relaxed to allow the sale of non-lead-free solder again? or did I
stumble across some old stock? Last time I bought solder was maybe 5
years ago and I couldn't find goold old 60/40 to save my life...

60/40 solder == 60% Tin / 40% Lead

There's nothing illegal about tin/lead solder in the US, at least yet
(Ssshhhh! Obama hasn't thought of this one). You do *NOT* want anything else
for electronics. Sure, lead-free (RoHS) solder is available unless you really
know what you're doing it's impossible to use. Leaded solder is not supposed
to be used for plumbing, however.