Soldering with a Cold Heat tool.

NIevo

New Member
Has anyone here ever tried using one of those battery operated Cold Heat soldering tools? I got one as a gift a couple years ago and for the life of me cant get it to work worth a darn. I don't know if it's me, the tool, or the solder that comes with it but I can't get it to flow. Tried to solder my track joints and it would just ball up and fall onto the ballast.

Is there something I'm doing wrong or are they just junk and I should get a real soldering iron? If so what do you guys recommend for a cheaper one. I don't solder that much so I don't want to go overboard.
 

rogerw

Active Member
I think its the cold heat tool .I remember reading in other post that there not so good for track. To much metal to heat up. I think they are good for smaller projects though.
 

Jim Krause

Active Member
As Roger said "several people reported poor results when attempting to solder rail". There was a similar post about one year ago, right after Christmas.
 

Squidbait

Recovering ALCO-holic
The Cold Heat will not give you a good solder joint on anything above a code 55 rail. It just can't generate enough heat. You might be able to heat the feeder wire enough to get the solder to flow, but you won't get a good bond to the rail, because it doesn't get hot enough.

You can use it to solder wire to rail joiners, though. The other thing I'd recommend is getting the fine point tip. The chisel tip just is too big to be useful for small soldering jobs.

It also takes a lot of practice. The problem is that if you don't hold the tip just so, you can wind up burning up the tip, and the more damage you do to the tip, the worse it performs.

Get yourself a decent little iron or gun. The second one from the top is a useful little unit.
 

rogerw

Active Member
If you go with the gun make sure you but it in a locked gun cabinet and the ammo is not stored with it...... Oh wait different type of gun sorry.
 
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