Solder Tips?

[Obfuscolios]

After finishing the fretboard cleanup of my 3120, I plug her in to find out that the last upward position of the 5-way switch makes no sound, Dang! I take off the rear plastic guard to find that a small purple/blue (i'm color blind) wire came loose from the switch. After testing it, I found that it works fine when touched to the solder lump the other wires are secured by. So here's my question, how hard is it to strip back a little bit of the wire covering and solder it back in place?

-MikE

[satchboogeyman]

Its easy. Buy a solder gun and some resin core solder and practice on an old circuit board or practice soldering wires together. Then check your solder joint with a volt meter. Check out the seymour duncan website and you can watch some vids of him soldering some pickups.

[hydrahead]

The two hardest parts about soldering are: scrapping off the old solder and waiting for the iron to heat up the part.
I recommend 60/40 resin core solder. And I use a $15 hardware store soldering iron. Follow the instructions that come with the iron.
Here's the SD link http://www.seymourduncan.com/support...all_a_pu.shtml

[Obfuscolios]

Thanks for the replies!

After doing a little research, I've got one more question to ask before I do the repair. I went down to Radioshack to look at the solder irons, and it turns out that there are several different versions with different wattages attributed to them. While I know that the wattage translates to warmup time and overall heat (at least that's what i was told), I was wondering which is sufficient for working on the guitar? I don't want to use too much heat and mess up something else when I do the repair.

Thanks,

-Mike

[ryanb]

25-40 watts is plenty. If you are just doing control wiring, I would suggest staying in the 25-30 watt range.

Of course, IMO Radio Shack irons are crap. Go find a Weller iron at your local hardware store instead and it will work much better and last much longer.

[hydrahead]

The Weller standard duty 25watt is what I use and it gets the job done.

[wjs1820]

It's important to heat the wire and contact point with the iron so that it draws the solder into the connection. You dont want to heat the solder on the iron and try to drip it on the connection! This will cause a poor connection and will probably fail later.

[shotgunlew]

I always use silver solder, seems to get the best connection, jus my 2Cents

[Lefty Robb]

What ever you do, don't buy that ColdHeat gun, its a piece of $hit.

[Oatman]

I was recently in the same boat. Just started teaching myself the ropes. I went with the switchable 15w - 30w radioshack iron. I like the lower setting for smaller parts. Plenty hot for the smaller joints, and less risk of heat damage. I like the 30W for those gigantic globs of solder grounding all the wires together on the pots. It will take FOREVER to melt through all that at only 15w, it's bad enough on 30w.

Also spring for the fanier clippy heat sink thingie. I started out with the el cheapo alligator clips and the heat sink that comes in the pack of solder probes/manipulators. They suck. Go for the nicer one with the red rubber handles (looks like a pointy tweezer).

Finally if I had it to do over again I would get this. In the end the difference in price would have been well worth it!!!

https://amptechtools.powweb.com/solder.htm

Weber VST is a great supplier.

His 63/37 quick set solder also rocks, but the regular radio shack stuff is good enough, just get the .022 diameter, and not the thicker stuff.