I have had no experience in soldering. Can members share their tips and secrets on how to get a good job, particulally in joing very fine wire . An example are the wires on C.B Gitty Piezo. How do yoy hold them. They are nearly imposable to twist together
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Have you tinned the wires first? Clean the iron's tip and tin it with a _little_ solder. Then hold the tip on the wire, leave it for say 2 seconds and then introduce solder to the wire where it is touching the tip. This should flow over thewire and between any strands.
If you are joining tricky thin wires one trick is to tin both, this will make the strands rigid. Then bend each one back on itself halfway along the exposed tinned core. Link the two 'U' shaped ends and they should hold in place whe you heat then together and introduce a little more solder if required.
Cheers,
Steve
Thanks for the advice. I just spoke to an electrican mate who said that one of the ways of holding fine wire fo soldering was to use Blu-Tack. Just twist or cross the wires and then do the job with both hands available. He agrees that fine wire is very difficult. Do we need such fine wire on piezo's, Mr Gitty?.
Blu-Tack would work. It's usually a three handed job and seeing how most of us only have two,.. I use a Panavice product that is similar to the Model 396 with the exception that mine has the vacuum hold down base. http://www.panavise.com/index.html?id1=1&startat=1&--woSECT...
These or similar are pretty handy to have around even if your not going to use them much. It's pretty maddening trying to solder a pot or anything for that matter when you are trying to hold something and solder at the same time. Many times a spring clamp works just fine also.
Sounds like you are just fighting the wire trying to make a solder connection between the two. I'm not sure how thin the wire is that you are using but a as long as it's not too thin gauge wire, a crimp connector might be a better choice. A good crimped connection is much better than a potentially "iffy" wire to wire solder connection.
RC
#1) Clean your tip often and religiously.
#2) Always tin your leads
#3) Practice on spare wire lying about. Fine wire is really tough, even when you are not soldering on a board.
#4) Never solder without pants.
Maybe #4 should actually be #1