Indium solder

That's up to you! (I haven't tried it myself - gallium is quite expensive, so I don't have much, and my attempts at moulding it would not fool anybody.)

The gallium will sink, and is not (AFAIK) poisonous - though I would question the wisdom of drinking it directly. I guess it would stay liquid and gradually pass through your system, with a bit turning into gallium oxide or gallium chloride salts.

But the person with the tea will either stir long enough to notice the entire spoon has melted between their fingers, leave the spoon in and see that it disappears when they let go, or take it out after a quick stir and see it is half gone. It's unlikely that they would get as far as drinking it.

On a sunny day (Wed, 18 Oct 2017 09:54:17 +0200) it happened David Brown wrote in :

You could probably make a spoon of sugar with the same effect. Cheaper.

Why not? If you use the indium to de-solder then aren't you going to put something on the empty pad?

You don't use it for desoldering. Bismuth-tin (ChipQuik) is better for that and much cheaper.

The only time I've ever used indium solder on a PCB was with some InGaAs ph otodiodes on ceramic substrates. PbSn sucked the gold off the ceramic, leav ing nothing, whereas In worked fine.

It's much more often used for soldering to inorganic materials.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Oh! Well I was sure Win recommended it in the context of desoldering. I misunderstood the quote he replied to.