PBL!!

Check out PBL

http://www.p-b-l.com/

If just starting I recommend their DVD "The Art of Soldering as Applied to Model Railroading"

Made my own unit from a

Made my own unit from a battery charger. Buy a small charger from W/M about 22 -25 $$. Add a sowing machine foot switch for $10 and you are good to go.

Set on high and use the foot sw. to regulate the voltage/amperage out put. Foot switch on the 110 volt input.

 "Those of you that use a

I have a Hotip 200 watt( PBL) that works well but if I didn't have one I wouldn't spend the money on a new one . They are great for certain things but most model railroad stuff can be done with a small pencil type iron or a larger Weller trigger type gun, and if you need more heat for a small area one of the little butane powered soldering torches works great. Installing track feeders with the hotip is harder than with the pencil iron because one has to get the feeder positioned then be able to step on the hotip foot switch for each lead while the pencil iron is hot and ready to go so a few feeders can be prepared then soldered with no worry about how to reach the foot switch from an awkward position.I probably do 95% of my soldering with a small iron and only use the hotip for the odd stuff like unsoldering a detail part from a brass loco.......DaveB

Agree with OKGraeme 100% on...................................

..............both the PBL and the video.  I purchased the biggest one with both tweezers and carbon rod tip, as I work in large O scale models.

Once you have watched the video and understand exactly what a solder joint is and how the heat, flux and material work together you will be able to solder nearly anything that will accept solder.  I also agree about it's usefulness for certain jobs, others not so.  I use it exclusively for soldering rail to PC ties in Fast Track Jigs as well as the track feeders which I solder to the bottom of the rail.  To me nothing ruins a great picture than seeing a whacking great wire up alongside a rail.  I use a pencil iron for all the rest of my electrical connections. 

For big jobs like taking apart large joints (removing the cab sides off the frame for example) the butane torch works great.  The PBL video gave me that idea. 

Right tool for the right job.

Peter

I agree with the above, a

I agree with the above, a resistance soldering station is great if you are scratch building your O gauge Berkshire - a friend did and used his resistance unit - however for every task you stated in your original post, you can get by with an $11 Weller pencil unit.  Save your money for other goodies, we need enough of them in this hobby.

Brass construction

I have the American beauty with all three appliances. While I haven't used it too much, a member of our club used it to make the railings on a 4 foot trestle and loved it. I have used it to solder together the broken cross member of a brass articulated loco. It would have been impossible without it, at least for me. A friend used to scratch build O scale locos and used a torch. I tried this once on a brass loco and it almost became a pile of parts. I don't remember what I paid (Micro Mark), but it was north of $500. Unless you are planning on building or modifying brass locos, regular irons should work.. 

                                                                                      Ray

I agree with the others also

Now, if all your going to do is solder track feeds and flex track together use a pencil iron, I use an professional style Weller that I think is about 60 to 70 watts.  The only issue with that typd of unit is the cost of the replacement tips, they are $15.00 each. 

I have a 250w PBL resistance unit that I have used over the 20+ years when scratch building or kitbashing brass locomotive.  Back it in the old days if you wanted to remoter a locomotive it involved soldering new motor mounts and bolster for the replacement trucks.

As stated above, buy a good pencil iron and save the rest for other modeling projects.

...

I have both the the Weller wes51 and the American Beauty.  Love them both, but they do different work.

I highly recommend the WES51 as your first step towards soldering.  Its a good unit.

Drewrail, where are you...............

................buying your tips??  I'm guessing you have the Weller wes51 like Benny and I get tips for around 4 bucks:

http://www.all-spec.com/search?keywords=weltip510&x=25&i=1&f=f&gclid=CPu3u8-6jsICFcpj7AodfB0APg

Peter

Reference to Resistance Soldering Station

As a repair tech in the field of appliances, electronics and computers with a diploma in Computer repair and an Associates degree in Computers and Robotics technology with many years of experience as well, I personally use either a standard non-regulated 30 watt soldering iron or a standard 140/240 watt Weller soldering gun as it depends on how much heat I have to apply to properly solder the thickness of the material I'm soldering. As my instructors taught me in those schools. The only knowledge that you need to know in reference to soldering is three things (1) Plenty of practice. The more the merrier and the better you become (2) Apply heat to the object or joint you are soldering first and then apply the solder as the heat will "Suck-Up the solder into the joint all by itself if properly heated (3) Pay Attention to your solder joint after it solidifies and hardens (A) If it is "DULL" looking and/or blobby and lumpy then you didn't have enough heat and it didn't take and it is called a "Cold Solder Joint" which will cause you trouble later. You Must STOP and immediately do it over. (B) If it is "Bright" and "Shiny" with a nice smooth surface then go treat yourself to a "T"-Bone steak, because you just learned how to properly solder any joint you will ever need to solder. Guess what? My instructors were right on the button.

The three rules of soldering!!

Old Prospector,

I like your three rules but the three most important rules I was taught when I learned High Reliability Hand Soldering (as taught to NASA and Airforce guys) was:-

Rule One - Clean the surfaces to be soldered.

Rule Two - Reclean the surfaces to be soldered.

Rule Three - Check to make sure the surfaces to be soldered are clean and if not clean them again.

I know this seems like overkill in the model railroad situation and it probably is but a good solder joint requires a smooth CLEAN surface. Flux will clean away a lot of dirt and oil etc but not everything. If you are soldering wire to NS rail the flux in the solder is usually enough but I still rub the rail with an INK eraser.

When building something like a brass kit or adding details to a loco I always scrub the joint area with an INK eraser and use a separate brush on flux like PBL stocks. Don't rely on ordinary electrical solder for these jobs as the flux is not really suitable for this sort of work.

One of the worst types of "dirt" your solder joint can encounter is just plain old skin oil. If after cleaning your joint with eraser DON'T touch it! If assembling electrical circuits and the component lead is not straight don't run it through your fingers to straighten it. Use a pair of pliers or at the least a tissue.

OP is right about the practice. if I haven't done any soldering for a while I and I have some joints that are critical (such as DCC decoders) I always do a couple of joints on some scrap wire to jog the muscle memory into action.

 A lot of soldering should actually not be conventionally but should be sweated. Sweating is where you tin (apply a layer of solder) the items to be sldered then place them together and reheat to get the solder to flow. Usually no extra solder is needed. I use this technique for soldering droppers to rail and they are virually invisible and strong. Remember a big blob of solder doesn't really mean a good joint and can actually hide a bad joint.

Here endeth the lesson!!