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Michael Black[_2_]

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016, wrote:

well, bought a 140/100 watt gun and tips. The standard tips fell apart
at the tip. As if the tips were soldered together. Very funny HaHa.

That's normal.

The act of soldering corrodes the tip (which is why better soldering irons
have plated tips), and the very tip of the tip is where the action will
be. I never had a tip that didn't break out at the tip.

That said, early on (I got my first gun in 1972, already used, I finally
bought a "new" used one a few years ago) I was given about a metre of
really large gauge stranded wire, each strand being about the size of the
copper used in the soldering gun tips. So after buying a few tips, I just
started using that copper, cutting to size. I've just about run out, all
these decades later, though of course as time went on, I used the gun
less.

Someone once suggested silver plating the copper (or find some already
silver plated wire), but that seems like overkill, just get another piece
of copper wire.

Keep in mind that newer guns are made differently. The old ones had lugs
that the tip fitted into, then you tightend those lugs. New ones have
scres to hold the tip in place, and I gather those don't provide as good
contact. I ended up buying on of those newer guns at a garage sale, never
got around to using it because I found an older one at another garage sale
(the plan had been to just use the casing of the new gun on my old one,
the 1972 case being in really bad shape). So taht may impact on things, if
you have the newer gun.

Is there a heavier duty tip for the 140/100 watt gun ?

I used one in HS that would blow a hole thru the fridge door. This gun is not that. Nor did I experience tip failure.

They aren't literally guns, so I have no idea what you're talking about
there.

Michael