My dad was an electronics engineer. I've been soldering since about I was 12...but never on pots. I think I cooked 1 or 2.
Tricks in the context of guitars?
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My dad was an electronics engineer. I've been soldering since about I was 12...but never on pots. I think I cooked 1 or 2.
Tricks in the context of guitars?
You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!
Replies
Some pots come with a tab on the front side edge. I bend them to the side, scuff and solder to the tab. This keeps the heat in the tab and side of the pot instead of right over the element. If no tab, I solder to the side of the pot.
And don't apply the flux to the hot iron like Tim Sway does. I just use a piece of wood to put the flux on surfaces. And for wires, I just poke them in the paste before tinning them.
I use a long stick cotton swab, stick end, not the cotton.
Okay, if you think it through, you will realize the only reason to solder to the back of a pot is that it is a convenient location to solder one leg of the capacitor and a ground wire or two. That being said, there is no requirement to solder these things to the top of the pot. Just solder them together hanging.
Option two (and this is a lot easier than you might think). Take a small screwdriver or scribe and bend the tabs holding the pot cover on. Gently remove the cover and solder away. You won't cool anything with this approach. This is the method I use (after cooking a brand new pot).
Tip: Don't use a monster sized soldering iron. A 25 watt iron is usually plenty. Also make sure you are using rosin core solder 60/40 works great and doesn't take a lot of heat.
I pulled the cans off two burnt pots and soldered. Man, was that easy. Gonna remember that.
Question about the can metal...is it resistant to fatigue breaking, or does it have more than 2 bends in it?
I think that as long as you only bend them just enough to get the can off the pot, you should have a half dozen or more bend attempts.
Rosin core check
Pot of flux check.
Scuff check
Gonna try the screwdriver trick on one I've cooked, I'll learn something seeing the inside of a pot too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-O2TGoArrY
Never thought of using sinks. That's going in the repertoire...
dont try to solder the wire in one go. do as Ben said. scuff the back of the pot and get a hot iron and use flux if the solder doesnt have enough/any and don't hold the iron on the pot for too long. get a blob of solder sticking to the back first then add the wires.
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