On Monday, 8 October 2018 03:44:54 UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

The trick
to soldering is to use decent equipment, a clean tinned tip, and the
correct temperature.

I tried a new soldering iron long ago that had a sawn off nail as a tip. The heating wire was wound onto this tip over an insulating sheet, so it wasn't replaceable. It soldered perfectly. I expect it would not have handled large joints, but I wasn't doing any at the time.

A couple of years ago I tried soldering with nothing but a nail & a flame. Managed to produce good joints on pcbs, but the amount of time the nail stayed hot enough was very short, limiting what it could handle.

Like many things, if you know what you're doing you can get all sorts of crap to work if necessary.


NT