On Sat, 16 Sep 2017 07:54:32 -0400, Tim Schwartz
wrote:

Hello,

Hi Tim, ;-)

Just so you know, the tip number indicates temperature in Fahrenheit.

Ah, so I'm guessing Weller is American? It's funny, whilst I was born
into a mostly imperial measurement world and was then merged into
metric, one of the few things I don't ever think I ever used is
Fahrenheit scale (maybe early tropical fish stuff)? I guess that's
because it's scale doesn't relate to anything tangible to me, like the
freezing and boiling points of water etc?

6=600, 7=700, 8=800.

conversion ah, 6=315, 7=370 and 8=425 DegC (although I agree those
numbers don't have such a ring to them and would be difficult to mark
on a tip). ;-)

Many US suppliers such as Mouser.com and
Digikey.com stock parts for these older Weller products.

There seem to be a few places in the UK as well Tim.

I'd guess
someone like Farnell in the UK would as well.

Yes, and we also have eBay etc where the odd good thing comes up. ;-)

In general I use a 700
degree tip.

I've just fired my iron up with the new barrel and tinned the ends of
a couple of bits of stranded copper cable with my 6 tip and it seemed
to do so very easily. Maybe a 7 would be required if using unleaded
solder (which I'm not)?

I have a couple of 7's on their way so I can see how they compare on
my iron.

Cheers, T i m