Cleaning soldering iron tips?

I'd be worried it would. A thick chunk of leather makes a good wiping pad.

Stainless is much 'harder' than brass, and will definately wear the iron plating off quickly.

Personally I don't use brass either, at least not on a regular basis. A sponge, wet, works best IMHO.

Stainless is harder, hence more abrasive, yes.

A suede shoe brush is the best thing I have found. Mine cost about a pound at the local hardware shop.

Or an old cotton rag from, say, a torn t-shirt. Doesn't even need to be damp since a few scorch marks do not hurt it at all. Scrap of old denim or cotton twill would do as well.

That said, I do pair the rag with one of those little weighted-base pots full of brass turnings. Easier for one-handed use.

I still have an Ungar soldering iron with its original tip IN TACT! purchased and placed into constant service starting in 1961.

I have no idea what Ungar did to make that gold plated tip so good, but I always used their "dip into this" cleaner. That tip has always kept 'wet' and performs better than the new tools.

I wish I could find a smaller tip version now.

Robert

It'll certainly scratch it. Why not just use the traditional wet sponge?

Cleaning soldering iron tips with any abrasive will remove the plating from them. Electronics tips are normally plated with a thin kevlar coating to make thwe last longer. Abrade away the plating and you'll be filing the tip ever after. Clean the hot tip with a wet spomge.

DA

You shouldn't have any concern about using any of the tip cleaning materials you've mentioned. Jabbing the tip into the the highly flexible curly material isn't the same as scraping the tip with a knife edge. The soldering equipment manufacturers' prices are inflated for these products, and any generic scrubbie material from discount stores should be just as effective.

BTW, tips are considered consumables, and definitely aren't intended to last forever. In production, where tips are subjected to excessive temperatures and some exotic active fluxes, short tip life is accepted as normal for better production rates.

In hobby or small shop use, the user can establish some habits to extend tip life for considerably longer useful lifetimes. Reducing the temperature to an acceptable point is probably the most effective habit, and turning the temperature down (or off) for extended periods when the equipment isn't being used. Using a cleaning method such as the scrubbie material to keep the tip from developing a buildup of flux. Applying fresh solder to the tip at the time the unit is turned off, so the tip is covered, and not bare when the equipment is turned back on.

It may be helpful to cut apart a used tip to see what it's made of. Many tips have a copper core which is iron plated, then plated with copper and finally, a nickel alloy. It's when the nickel is compromised, that leads to tinning problems and tip replacement.

Bare copper erodes very quickly when used with active fluxes and solder. Steel or iron aren't good materials for tips, but nickel plating accepts solder very well and is very good for keeping the tip tinned with a wet surface. Ungar HotVac threaded tips were steel (probably a leaded steel alloy) and very problematic if they were overheated. The only effective way I found to clean them was to use silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper to cut away the very hard surface layer and restore the tip area to shiny steel. I eventually made adapters for the threaded tips, which could use low cost 1/8" diameter plated tips.

There are many variations of tip fabrication, and short working life cycle tips should be replaced with tips of better quality.

I've been using some stainless steel scrubbie material for a couple of years and haven't seen any signs of tip damage. The tips are Edsyn, Plato and Pace, which are fairly good quality tips. I used damp sponge tip cleaners for years, but sponge wasn't as effective at removing flux residues from tips. Damp tip cleaning sponge is probably the quickest, easiest way of removing excess solder from tips, when too much solder can be a problem, such as with surface mount reflowing or very delicate soldering jobs.

By using a paper punch to produce numerous holes in the compressed sponge material when it's new, you can provide numerous cleaning edges for removing excess solder from tips.

Scrubbie-type products can be found that are brass, copper or stainless steel. I would suggest that steel wool be avoided, since small pieces of the fine strands can stick to a tinned tip and find their way on to a circuit board.

-- Cheers, WB .............

I always do this, & it gives my tips years more life. (Weller WTCP station)