I have a few soldering irons, and some have even been used. My primary irons are A Maplin soldering Station - 60W with variable tempreture. Although 609W on the label, its primarily designed for circuit board / electronics and with small tips does not have a lot of heat in reserve for brass kits. Antex 25W a good little iron that my cat loves to chew the original mains cable. Now replaced with a longer cable (approx 5m) and is great for general use, but struggles to solder wires to O gauge track. Weller 80W soldering iron with a 10mm and 12mm bit - 10mm bit is the only one I've used so far. Originally purchased many years ago to assemble r/c battery pack. Lots of heat in the bit, but maybe a bit too much for the brass kits. Big Bertha - an ancient beast, with a woodern handle, and a lump of copper for the tip approx 2" long, 1" wide and 1/2" thick could probably solder wires onto a cast iron engine block. So why the new Iron, well, I wanted medium duty iron suitable for brass loco construction, Jim McG of Connoisseur fame recommends the Weller 40W irons with a 6mm tip, so thats what I've ordered. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NVKIL70/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Two versions were available - just the iron on its own and the kit version, I went for the kit, which includes a stand, a soldering aid, solder and a ST3 & ST7 alternative tips. I also bought an MT10 pack of 3 6mm chisel tips. A neat feature is the handle has 3 LEDs built in to illuminate the work - I'll see how useful this is when I try out the iron. The black bits in the red head (below) are the LEDs, and are supposed to be focussed on the end of the tip. Paul
Same as mine but mine ain't shiny no more imho the 6 mm tip is too cumbersome. A good tip but too big. I'd order in some 3 mm tips which would be ample. A good iron though. Toto
Ive started a soldering box where I keep all my irons, tips and Any non standard solder as I was previously putting it in " too safe " a place.
