differences ? stained glass soldering iron and electrical soldering iron

Usable? Certainly. Very practical? Not hardly. Typically the tip is too broad, an gets too hot over too large an area for electronic use. Perhaps for chassis-connections but for circuit boards or single wire connections, not so much.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

It should be fine. You should make sure the tip is cleaned of any acid type flux before using the iron on copper and rosin type solder. That is usually not a problem as when you clean the tip as you should befor putting it to solder the old flux will come off.

Back in my very young days (before 16) I put together a couple of radio kits using the soldering pencil looking thing that came in a wood burning art kit I had. They all worked fine.

Ummmmmm, ummmmm. Stained Glass soldering irons start at 100 watts. And up.

They more-or-less look like this, bent or straight:

Tip Temperature is typically at/near 700F.

Wood burners can go as high as 800F, most are in the 480-550 range. And so would be OK - at least - for conventional electronic soldering.

Eutectic solder melts ~361F. 480F is a fine tip temperature, pretty much what I use.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

It all depends on what one is soldering. I have a 100 watt iron my dad used. Back in the tube days they were the 'standard' iron. Think it may have been called a black beauty. I have a 100 watt iron with a very large tip, it may be for the stained glass work. I don't know. Bought it to solder the pl259 coax plugs on the coax cable.

The OP did not state what he was soldering. He may want to put together a couple of # 12 wires so a large iron could be used.

right...transistor/tubes....I forget. I was on the van roof soldering connectors to waterproof plugs n 10 Ga to 8 Ga for a set of Hella roof lights

3-4 connectors from work end day, the 40 watt Weller quit. I cleaned it. 0-.

went to the box for another . Cleaned it. -0- ..there's a chip

from the factory makes the chip shuts down 'save' when piss runs out of you at the library.

so I went over to Weller.China when I got down n to Amazon/GooShop

n settled on an 80 watt from Weller free shipping.

I had a gun up to 100w or 120w second squeeze...the $100 model.

40 watts drives me crzy. but I forget abt transistors

!!!

The old Weller TCP1 irons had heat graded tips -700F seems to be the standard, I've also seen 800F tips.

AFAIK: Stained glass windows are held together with plain lead - it requires a much higher temperature than solder.

If the iron is as hot as I suspect - it'll probably burn off the flux too quickly.

I don't know about the big windows, but most of the home built items seem to wrap the edges of the glass with copper foil.

Yes. I knew someone forty years ago who wsa doing it that way. I'm not sure when it moved that way, somewhere I got the impression that it had been done some other way in the past. Or maybe the split is that a hobbyist will use copper foil, while for churches, it's something more substantial.

Michael

"The copper foil technique, method made popular by L.C. Tiffany at the turn of the century, involves wrapping the pieces of glass with copper foil and soldering them together along the length of the seams.

"Copper foil can be used as an alternative to lead in any instance at the personal preference of the user. It is much stronger than lead when soldered, needs no putty, is waterproof, and allows you to do intricately detailed projects where the bulky look and weight of lead would detract from the aesthetics of a delicate design."

According to another page on that site, lead "came" (channel) sometimes comes with a hollow heart into which steel rod can be inserted, to increase its strength. Zinc channels are sometimes used for the same reason.

Probably can not use lead today as it seems everyone is afraid of lead in the environment. Just looking at it causes all kinds of problems so they say. The solder would have to be lead free too. I did see on one of the web pages that sells the equipment can not send the 50/50 solder to one state and have to send the lead free or maybe the 60/40 type.

Archeologists in the UK are still finding old Roman lead water ducting. Many buildings (especially churches) have lead roofs that are lashed by rain and hail that runs into the water table.

Theft of lead roofs by scrap metal thieves is a huge problem - I've been told that they can't use other material because they are listed buildings that must be maintained in original condition. There are products that look just like lead roofing, but AFAIK: they're not allowed to use them.

The listed building laws probably apply equally to repairing or replacing stained glass windows.

Weller's 80 watt iron arrived n tried it on 10 Ga with couplers. OK. problem solved no struggle (new iron) apply tip wait solder. No apply n wait maybe today ...with a 40W

I grew up in a house with leaded glass windows, and it was really just lead--I had to replace a pane or two, which I did with a knife and some JB Weld or Devcon putty.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

Stained glass assembly uses lead, so any remenant will be compatible with 60/40 solder and flux.

High wattage irons are useful in soltering heavy gauge mounting tabs and screw posts, in closing sheild seams and in other types of heavy copper soldering. Raising the temperature quickly, completing the soldering and removing the heat source within the thermal time constant of many power semiconductor packages is impractical with smaller irons.

RL