Been awhile since we discussed the most common SOLDERING SURFACES (to the best of my knowledge :) Honeycomb ceramic soldering board: lightweight, have tons of tiny holes, they don’t retain heat and cool quickly. They reflect heat back onto whatever you are soldering which makes your flame more effective, this does mean you might have slightly more residue and oxidation. They are an ideal choice for soldering most projects except tiny things (which can fall through the holes) this constantly happens with my solder as well. Ceramic honeycombs with pins (those come in large and small and that refers to the hole size) and we’ve shown a bunch of tips with those, I love em! Pins allow you to hold things in place while soldering. Charcoal: comes in soft or hard/premium. Heat reflective. Soft charcoal is great for carving grooves to position small elements into, or sticking pins and binding wire into. Soft can be crumbly and become an ember and burn up if not quenched carefully after heavy use. To make a charcoal block last longer, wrap the edges with binding wire and anneal the entire thing before use. The annealing step is thought to stabilize the charcoal. I tend to use hard charcoal as it’s more long lasting. It can also be carved. Solderite Board (calcium silicate) also comes in soft and hard! The hard version are dense so they don’t break or flake as easily. I find mine rapidly cools so it can be good for soldering smaller elements that I don’t want to melt. I don’t find myself using it for soldering larger things for that I prefer honeycomb or charcoal. The softer ones you can stick pins into or even pieces of metal (like prongs) so great for positioning work. SWIPE 👉 Below all of this stuff I have a solid ceramic board, this protects my soldering table and I place my solder on it (hard on one side, medium on the other). What’s your favorite, what questions do you have? Let us know! * * * * *
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