by model murdering » Wed Sep 25, 2019 5:45 pm
Soldering is easy. You sit on yer butt. You heat the joint patiently. When it is hot enough you feed the solder in.
As with all things, the devil is in the details. Getting things to the point of soldering is the actual work.
Fitment is everything!
Frequently over looked is how your project is actually constructed. Poorly planned joints, or a series there-of, is just asking to get bit. I like to use captive or interlocking jointing via key holing, collets, shouldering, pinning, slots, ledges, lips, or troughs. I avoid common or free abutments like the plague. Naturally, mechanical jointing takes extra time and effort.
The upshot is that it helps when one is clamping and jigging modules, and assembling the modules into the whole. Assuming you keep the tolerance close, your bulkheads, cross members and frame connectors slide right into position on the frame rails. This also pays some dividends with the heat transfer across the joint. Flopping bits cannot be soldered. Impinge joints, with good physical contact between the pieces, will suck liquid solder in like a vacuum. Additionally, by using captive jointing, cross measuring and any subsequent minute adjustments can be nudged in without fuss.
Soldering is a physical process. Regardless of what one uses as a build substrate, ceramic jig, wooden buck, or free hand; one has to be able to lean on or into the project with the iron, in order to put sufficient heat into the joints quickly ... AND have that heat transfer efficiently across the pieces. If your project is scooting away, or the parts are wiggling around, you wont be happy with the results.
I also plan for run off or run out. It's not a perfect world, and shyte happens. I prefer to leave a way out for excess solder to drip or flow off neatly, rather than gobbing or wadding under the jig, or buck. While we dont want to, occasionally one has to over feed (washout), or re-heat a joint to get the solder to wick down satisfactorily and lay down clean. Consider that its easy to exceed the rating of a small iron by over feeding an area. Ideally I want enough heat so the solder can flow in and out of the joint uniformly, like warm syrup. By planning ahead, you might not have any major clean up, or at worst; a kiss with a fine file and some 600 wet dry.
Truth be told, I spend a good bit of time thinking it out, a bunch of time prepping it, and just a few seconds soldering. :auto-driving: