Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Paul, I've had to toss my old soldering iron. It was a 40 watt model. I replaced it with a 15 watt model. I'm thinking that I should've bought at least a 25 watt model. It taked too long for the 15 watt model to heat up. And it seems like its much harder to get everything to stick. Before I pull the nice little mess of hair that still on my head....help!

I'm a fan of the soldering stations.

Weller makes one (WLC-100) that's available online for about $40.00 and can be adjusted for temperature.

Hobby Engineering has a similar item for $33.95.

These comprise a transformer/temperature control unit, a holster and a sponge for tip cleaning. Add a can of flux and some rosin-core wire solder and you're covered.

These are both 40W units.

If you're soldering grounds to pot cases, the 15 isn't going to make it.

Paul, thanks! It was driving me crazy.

Paul wrote:

... These comprise a transformer/temperature control unit, a holster and a sponge for tip cleaning. ...

That should be "A transformer/temperature control unit, a holster[,] and a sponge for tip cleaning comprise these."; the parts comprise the whole, whereas the whole is composed of the parts. Sorry Paul, just my insidious need for precision in discourse ... or datcourse.

Yeah, Gary, you've got me. "Comprise" is an active verb; "composed of" being the passive form. You're correct that the parts comprise the whole, and the whole is composed of the parts. I got my sentence order bass-ackwards, as you point out.

Thanks for the correction, kind Doctor.

BTW, this whole "comprise/compose" thing is one of my biggest pet peeves about NPR...they never seem to get it correct. It was me this time, however.

Now, about that soldering iron...

Listening to too much NPR then?? My big pet peeve is liberry - where you borrow books.

BTW, got that digital camera back yet?

Just today...

The guy who says "liberry" too much, along with "You Nod Sates of Murka" has never been in one, I fancy.

Could be worse ... it could be Feb-you-rary! (I was born in Feb-ru-ary, so I have a legitimate gripe on that common mispronunciation!)

Nu-cue-lar weapons.

I have heard two otherwise-well-educated men (one an economist, the other a sociologist) mispronounce "nuclear" on the radio and TV, in just the last week alone.

My own ex-brother-in-law was the first real human (well, sort of real) who I ever heard fail to mobilize his brain/tongue coordination well enough to pull this word off.

Why doesn't the Royal Wife (the vaunted "educator"--primary school teacher) clue him in? Maybe she thinks it's cute. I wonder how she pronounces it.

It seems that now is the time for all the members of the International Society of Nucular Mispronunciators to come out of their closets, individually and collectively...

One of my top English peeves is actually a Latin one:

"Ek cetera". I heard Darren Kagan (sp?) on CNN say it last week and almost lost my Cheerios and milk.

This, too, is becoming an epidemic of, well, epidemic proportions (so is repetition--have you noticed?).

For the record, it's "et cetera", which simply means, "and so on".

My biggest peeve is when journalists in print or on air use "safety-deposit-box " in place of "safe-deposit-box." You also here it regularly on TV shows. The box is in a safe not a safety.

Maybe it's a box used for depositing safetys.

Ken, I know what you mean...English as we know it might just be doomed, and it's because people can't even hear it right, much less speak it 'thataways'...

I lose it every time I hear someone say: "I gotta talk to my 'Relator'..."

Hehehehehe... Paul said nucular!

...Dean

Anyone have experience using one of those Cold Heat soldering guns?