| Electronics > Beginners |
| Brass wool + flux?? |
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| KL27x:
--- Quote ---I've tried the commercial stuff & it doesn't seem to work any better than supermarket brass wool, or Stainless steel scrubber pads, for that matter! The hardness of Stainless doesn't seem to be a problem, at least, I've never seen any great wear on tips from it. --- End quote --- I've found the hardness of the stainless steel isn't necessarily a problem, either. The iron and the chrome in a tip are both very hard, and abrasion isn't the issue. It's the stiffness where you can run into a problem. If you use the finer stuff, like 000 or higher, it should be fine. The coarser wool is rigid enough to accelerate chipping/cracking of the edge of the chrome plating. The thicker wool concentrates more force into smaller areas, enough to potentially damage the chrome. I would suppose you could damage a tip the same way on a block of brass with a sharp edge. It sounds stupid, but there's a similar phenomenon when removing rust from blued carbon steel. If you use 00 steel wool, you remove the bluing. If you use 0000, you can remove just the rust. It's the difference between theory and practice, I suppose. Yeah, you can buy bronze wool, commonly sold in marine supply shops and whatnot. If I had to take a guess, I would think it's used to scrub fiberglass. It's super, super fine. There are also some pure copper scrubbers called Chore Boys, but there are a lot of knockoffs that are copper plated steel, too. |
| Eka:
Bronze wool is used in marine environments because any bits left behind don't corrode like steel wool does.Bits will break off and get embedded in whatever you are using the steel, brass, or bronze wool on. Yeah, I found out about using bronze wool from a boater. He was using it on a BIG soldering iron. I figured it would work for the small ones too. I never liked the damp sponge. I still have the one that came with my soldering station that I bought back in the '80s. It's barely been used. I used bronze wool instead, and my tips have lasted for ever, except for one I got for the TS100. The tips for the TS100 have a fundamental design flaw. There is a seam right near the tip, and flux can get into it and eat it's way through. If they would flip it around so the wide sheath part and tip are one piece of metal. The seam will then be where the shaft gets narrow and be away from the highest heat. Then they would last much longer. It is also much less likely to get flux on it there. As is the seam is right in the middle of the highest heat zone, and any flux that gets into the seam will get activated, and eat away at the metal in the tip. I have a TS-D24 tip that is nearly one third eaten through. It literally looks like somebody took a saw to it right at that seam. |
| MacMeter:
--- Quote from: Eka on April 23, 2018, 12:43:31 am ---Bronze wool is used in marine environments because any bits left behind don't corrode like steel wool does.Bits will break off and get embedded in whatever you are using the steel, brass, or bronze wool on. Yeah, I found out about using bronze wool from a boater. He was using it on a BIG soldering iron. I figured it would work for the small ones too. I never liked the damp sponge. I still have the one that came with my soldering station that I bought back in the '80s. It's barely been used. I used bronze wool instead, and my tips have lasted for ever, except for one I got for the TS100. The tips for the TS100 have a fundamental design flaw. There is a seam right near the tip, and flux can get into it and eat it's way through. If they would flip it around so the wide sheath part and tip are one piece of metal. The seam will then be where the shaft gets narrow and be away from the highest heat. Then they would last much longer. It is also much less likely to get flux on it there. As is the seam is right in the middle of the highest heat zone, and any flux that gets into the seam will get activated, and eat away at the metal in the tip. I have a TS-D24 tip that is nearly one third eaten through. It literally looks like somebody took a saw to it right at that seam. --- End quote --- Interesting, I have a TS-D24 tip and use the Hakko wool. I’m not often soldering, but I’ll keep an eye on this. Thanks. |
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