On Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 3:49:57 PM UTC-4, root wrote:
John Robertson wrote:


Agreed, the Weller gun can help in an area where you need to apply a lot
of heat, yet you don't want an open flame - like soldering ground braids
together deep inside a pinball game! Otherwise the gun sits in the tool
chest like many other tools we use once in a while...

Jeff, your solder furnace looks nice, but a gun is a lot more portable.

A solder gun is just another tool that can be used correctly or incorrectly.

I also agree about the usefulness of a soldering gun, and I will add
that you can make your own tips from the 100amp single strand copper
wires for house wiring.

Coming in late to this, but I have two soldering guns - both yard-sale $1 items, both essentially pristine, barely used devices. As my primary interaction with electronics is vintage radios, such a device is quite useful for chassis and sheet-metal connections and other high-heat broadside applications that even a 40-watt pencil will simply not touch, and for which even a micro-flame torch is too much.

The second one is likely destined to be given away at Kutztown in May - At $1 for the full kit and plastic box, I could not resist - and so I will pass that luck on at the show.

The Keeper is a Sears dual-heat monster that I could use to boil water for tea. It makes enough heat even for 18 gauge sheet metal connections. Useful, when needed.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA