I must say, I was worried about this idea.
You need the solder to be able to "take to the tip" ever tried using a tip
that has gone all black, and will not "take the solder" useless as iron
turned off.

"Ross Herbert" wrote in message
...
On Sunday, 29 Aug 2004 00:02:56 -500, "Asimov"
wrote:

" bravely wrote to "All" (28 Aug 04 04:07:54)
| --- on the heady topic of " how do you clean your tip?"
|
|Why don't they make tips out of aluminum alloy? I shaped a small Al tip
|to remove 8 pin ics and it seems to work fine without corroding at all.
|
|

Aluminum (aluminium) oxidises very easily, even when not heated, and
you also need special flux and solder in order to "tin" (or rather
plate) the tip so that it can efficiently transfer heat to the solder
joint. I can't see this metal being at all useful for soldering tip
construction.


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