How To Clean A Soldering Iron Bit

Soldering iron tips are not made of nichrome like wood burning pens.

How to clean a soldering iron bit. If the tip is very dirty you may want to dip the tip in a commercial tip cleaning paste and then wipe it clean on the damp soldering sponge. The water just protects the sponge from the heat - by cooling the tip as the evaporation of water uses a lot of energy. You clean by thrusting the iron into the shaving a few times.

Never use abrasives on the soldering iron tip. Wiping the iron on an edge of a hole cut into a sponge can help to remove oxides easier and also allows waste to fall away. This step will coat the iron in a mixture of flux and solder.

Therefore you will experience ash and wood material gathering on the tip very frequently. Wet the soldering station sponge with the water provided in the lab. Make sure the sponge is damp not soaked with water.

Just heat it up with a propane torch and place the heated end against the solder you want to remove. Doing this promotes the easy flow of heat from your antique soldering iron to the solder joint. Reach over and unplug the iron and keep moving the solder around.

This can be achieved with the help of a flat-blade screwdriver Remove bit from iron never grip or bend the iron shaft this will damage the element Fit. Wipe the iron on a damp sponge to remove the excess. Plug in the iron and keep poking solder at the end of the tip until its external temperature JUST reaches the point where solder will melt and adhere to the tiplet.

If theres krud building up that doesnt come off with the sponge wipe it on a cleaning wireIf the tip gets really bad it can often be restored with a chemical tip tinner. Clean the soldering iron. The dampness has nothing to do with the cleaning process - thats just the mechanical wiping.