Pot Soldering Help?

[HolyDirt]

how can i heat up the pot chassis enough so i can put solder onto it when they burn out? should i use a hit sink?, where can i get a heat sink? anything else? thanks

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Pot Soldering Help?

Originally posted by HolyDirt
how can i heat up the pot chassis enough so i can put solder onto it when they burn out? should i use a hit sink?, where can i get a heat sink? anything else? thanks

Here's how I do it.....Sand the area of the pot that you will be putting the solder to..Make it nice and shiny...I never use a heat sink because the idea is to only heat the pot surface enough to get a shiny small flowing puddle of solder over your connection and get off the connection...

I use a soldering gun...I heat up the area of the pot,place a small puddle of solder onto the pot,wait for the pot to cool and than while holding my wires down on top of the solder puddle,I reheat the puddle and push the wires into the puddle...The trick is to heat up,melt the solder,get the wires into the puddle,and quickly get off the pot case...

I also use Silver Solder from Radio Shack because it doesn't need as much heat to do it's job..

John

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Pot Soldering Help?

Originally posted by HolyDirt
how can i heat up the pot chassis enough so i can put solder onto it when they burn out? should i use a hit sink?, where can i get a heat sink? anything else? thanks

Sorry I didn't answer your whole question...

Radio Shack sells heat sinks or you can use an alligator clip or hemostats...I always use a heat sink around caps,resistors,transistors,and diodes....Again,heat up and get off the component you're soldering to as quick as possible...As long as you aren't on the component for more than a few seconds,you should be ok...It's the extended periods of heat on the components that kills it...

John

[Chaos]

Re: Re: Pot Soldering Help?

Originally posted by STRATDELUXER97
I also use Silver Solder from Radio Shack because it doesn't need as much heat to do it's job..

John

As stated many times on the forum, the addition of silver increases the melting temperature of solder. Silver is added to solder to increase joint strength (which is not necessary for guitar applications).

Additionally, soldering guns are not designed for electronic soldering. They should be relegated to soldering metal seam-work and woodburning craft projects.

[zeppenwolf]

The total duration of heat applied may as well be minimized; I never do this more than once. Meaning, if I have to make a connection to the pot body, I instead attach a thick wire/cable, one sturdy enough to hold it's shape, like a good ground wire. Then any pu grounds or what have you I attach to the cable rather than the pot.

An additional benefit is that you can thereafter disconnect/reconnect things one at a time, rather than heat the whole cowpie and every lead comes flying off in crazy directions...

Eden

[Frantic_Rock]

Originally posted by zeppenwolf
An additional benefit is that you can thereafter disconnect/reconnect things one at a time, rather than heat the whole cowpie and every lead comes flying off in crazy directions...

Eden

Oh ya I hear ya!
I used to have lots of pain grounding to pot shells. Now i have 2 shielded guitar and everthing is ground to a pot ring that touches the foil on the pickguard.

I still have a problem with my strat though. I used to have my two single coils (neck and mid) perfectly humcancelled in position 2 - even quieter than my hotrail. Now, however, pos 2 only takes off about 50% of the hum (from position 1), and its very noticeable hum. Anybody know what I messed up when I shielded the guitar?

I'll make some pics soon of the insides if i can...

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Re: Re: Pot Soldering Help?

Originally posted by Chaos
As stated many times on the forum, the addition of silver increases the melting temperature of solder. Silver is added to solder to increase joint strength (which is not necessary for guitar applications).

Additionally, soldering guns are not designed for electronic soldering. They should be relegated to soldering metal seam-work and woodburning craft projects.

It's not the amount of wattage that matters as much as it is the amount of time you have heat on a component....I've been doing it this way for several years and speaking for myself and my methods,I don't have a problem with it...Whatever works...I Like to get the pot back heated up just enough to get a nice clean puddle and I'm quickly off the connection...Works everytime... I don't use soldering guns on any other areas of my electronic tweaking etc..except inside of Vintage Fender chassis and chassis front control grounds..Like anything in life,experience is the key..

John

[zeppenwolf]

Originally posted by Frantic_Rock
Now, however, pos 2 only takes off about 50% of the hum

The key should be the word "now": what happened twixt "then" and "now"? What exactly was involved in your sheilding project? Did you take out the pups, accidentally swap them, break a solder joint, get foil touching a hot lead somewhere, et cetera... I dunno, really: that's a tough problem to understand. You can't have switched the leads of one pup or you'd get an out-of-phase sound that would be bleeding obvious... Maybe your question deserves it's own thread!

>04 Custom Relic Telecaster (Fender Texas Special + SD stl-1)

Looks great!

Eden