I need to join a torque rod for a set of flaps on my BTE FK kit. Great. I hate soldering. I always have. I got back into this hobby hoping something had come out so I wouldn't have to solder anymore. Nope. Still have to use the stuff.
I did a search and found hundreds of posts about soldering. I read the
RC Universe How-To Guide to Soldering and did exactly as it said and still I can't get it to work. At all.
I have a Weller 80w soldering gun and some Bernzomatic silver solder and some flux that came with it. Since I haven't done this in over a decade, I decided to practice before I tried on the actual parts. I grabbed a coat hanger, cut it into pieces and got to work. First, I sanded the ends I wanted to solder. Nice and shiny bare metal. Then I dipped it in acetone to remove any grease or whatever. Once the acetone dried, I coated it with a liberal amount of flux. I then applied the gun to the metal and waited. The flux melted. I stuck the solder to the metal. Nothing happened. I waited. Nothing. So I moved the tip of the gun closer to where I wanted to melt the solder. Still nothing. I touched the tip of the gun directly to the solder. It melts just fine. Hmmm. I figure maybe it's the metal of the coat hanger dissipating heat super fast or something (yeah right) so I grabbed some pins (the kind that come stuck into dress shirts to keep it together while folded) to see if those would work. Same process, exact same result, which is, nada. So I tried some 10d nails. Same process, and again, same result. I couldn't even get a 130w Weller iron to work with less than 1mm separating the solder from the tip of the iron.
I'm tempted to just get a small torch and try that.
Any suggestions or advice?
Did I mention I really hate soldering?
Oh guess what, I have welded body panels on cars before and I did better my first time ever trying that than I have ever done with hours of practice soldering. Tonight is supremely frustrating because I can't even get the silver solder to melt, much less make any kind of a reliable joint.
Thanks again for any help!