Huge/Old Soldering Iron

[Adam Y.]

My great uncle died recently and my parents cleaned his house. They found a huge soldering iron that I have no idea what it was used for. It has to be at least two or three times larger than an average soldering iron that you find in a store. I am wondering what it was used for because the size of it prevents it from being used in anything I can think of including through hole components. I assuming it's a soldering iron because my parents also brought the flux and solder that probably went with the gun. It also doesn't have the safety cords that electronics devices have today.

[Dean Huster]

Big irons like that, typically with a tip diameter of 3/8" to 3/4" or larger, often had elements of 100W to 200W. They were typically used by tinners to solder together flashing for roofs in the years when it was made of tin or galvanized steel. A lot of holes in steel gasoline tanks were repaired using one of these irons. If the cord on yours has a two-color braided cloth covering, it's probably a little older, dating at least pre-1960. Acid core solder and/or flux was usually what was used with these irons. With that big tip, they had a huge heat reservoir, but took forever to come up to temperature.<p>Dean

[Robert Reed]

Sounds like an old time plumbers solder iron. However soldering irons from the past tended to be large and bulky for doing chassis work with tube designs. They still can be occasionally useful today for lead to chassis grounds or when working with any thing that would act as a heat sink trying to draw heat away from the soldering target. I still hane one from years ago that sees occasinal use where nothing else would work. I beleive it's rated at 300 watts.

[Adam Y.]

Your right. I just checked the solder that my parents brought home and the directions match the application you mentioned. Thanks for the information. Next I might actually if someone here knows how to use a slide rule.

[jwax]

Everybody on this forum knows how to use a "slip stick"! Right guys? Guys?

[Enzo]

I still have my slide rules from college. I have a couple large ones maybe 12-14" amd 2.5-3" wide. AndI have a little pocket style one with a leather holster and it is maybe 1.5 x 6"<p>It has been a long time since I usaed them, but it would come back quick enough if I tried.<p>Ther are people who collect them, by the way, and there are certainly interest groups centered on them if you search them out.<p>I remember the first day this new thing from Texas Instruments showed up in the college bookstore - an electronic calculator. 40 years ago it was a hot item, and I think it cost about $140, a lot then, and it was the same four function thing you now can buy at the grocery store for two bucks. But it was quite the innovation. But you could scribble formulae and crib notes in pencil on the blade of your slip stick. Can't do that on a calculator.<p>Not that I would ever do that.....

[terri]

My Pop was a Master Plumber and I wish I had some of his old tools --including one of those soldering irons. I was curious if your great uncle had any of those bars of tin with which the old-timers used to make their own solder. <p>As I recall, they'd melt the lead in a gasoline-fired pot and sort of stir in the tin bars, letting them melt as you stirred them until the composition was just right.<p>The way you could tell was to pour a small "test button" of the melted alloy on a brick and when it cooled, if you had three little crystalline-looking dots showing up in the test button, the alloy was right. If two, it needed more tin. If four, you had too much tin, and had to add more lead.<p>He taught me to "wipe a joint" by hand between two lead drain pipes... at the right temperature, the wiping solder was more or less plastic, and you could pour it over the joint and "catch it" with a wiping pad, and wipe the plastic solder to shape with the cloth wiping pad. My first and only wiped joint was leak-free. Boy, was he poud of me! I'll never forget that!<p>I remember him showing me how one of those tin bars "cried" when you bent them (you could do this by hand) because the crystals within the bar broke as you bent it.<p>These bars were about a foot long, about an inch wide, and about 5/8" high, with the smelter's name molded into the top side.

[ezpcb]

The largest iron I've ever seen is some what like a ax. it's not powered by electric, it must heated by a carbon oven or a piles of burning wood.