Is desoldering wick just a wire, honestly?

I actually made my own wick for a while out of copper braid I had left over from some speaker wire project, so I can tell you where it fell short. The braid itself was fine, it wicked solder up just like the store stuff. The problem was the flux. I used the same flux pen I keep for plumbing work and it burned off way too fast, so by the time the iron heated the braid through, there was nothing left to help the solder climb. I got dark crusty joints just like you're describing. Once I picked up a bottle of liquid rosin flux and brushed it on right before each use, the homemade braid worked almost as well as the Chem-Wick I used to buy. The other thing I noticed is that commercial braid is woven in a flat pattern that lays down evenly on the pad, while my hand-braided strands were round and lumpy, so it never made full contact on narrow pads. On bigger joints it didn't matter. On a dense board it was frustrating. I keep the homemade stuff in a drawer for cleaning out big holes in thick material, and I buy the flat woven kind for anything on a circuit board. The five dollar version wins on the bench, but rolling your own is a good trick to know when you run out mid-project.

I just buy the wick and never looked back after one afternoon of trying to roll my own. My issue wasn't even the flux, it was the weave. I took some fine wire off an old transformer and tried to braid it tight, but no matter how careful I was, the strands were too loose in spots. Solder would pool at the fat end and never travel down the length, so I'd end up with a lump instead of a clean lift. Store-bought wick is woven flat and even, and that evenness is what pulls the solder along like a sponge. I also found homemade braid held too much heat. I was working on a dead VCR board for practice and the pads got noticeably hotter before anything lifted, wich made me nervous about lifting a trace.

These days I keep a spool of Chemtronics wick in the drawer next to the solder and it lasts years at my hobby pace. Five bucks spread over a decade is cheaper than the hour I spent twisting wire and picking solder balls off the bench. The plumbing flux thing everyone tries is a dead end too, water-soluble paste is way too aggressive for electronics and it leaves residue you can't fully clean off a board.

For me the biggest difference was how fast the store bought wick pulls heat through. I do HVAC board repairs at work and the braid I buy is pre-tinned, so it heats and grabs solder in a second or two. My homemade copper braid attempts needed way more dwell time on the iron, which cooked the pads. I never bothered again after that. Also a proper soldering iron helps more than people think, my 60W pencil does a better job than the cheap 30W one ever did.

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