Soldering By James Goss      What type of soldering equipment do you have around your work area? Sooner or later you will need to do some soldering in this hobby and having the right soldering equipment will help. Basic soldering is an easy skill to learn and most people can solder with just a few tries. There are two basic types of soldering equipment, the pencil or soldering iron, and the soldering gun. The soldering pencil is called a pencil because it is a long and slender tool shaped like a pencil. Pencil type irons come in sizes between 15 and 60 watts on the average, but can be larger in size. Pencil type irons are good for small jobs and are good for production work because they stay hot and ready to go when you need them. It takes a while for these to heat up because they have a heating element that has to heat up and transfer the heat to the tip. It takes a few minutes for the tip to reach its operating heat, but when it does, it is just as hot as the bigger soldering guns. The difference is that the pencil's tip will drop in temperature when placed on an object to be soldered. The low wattage element can't supply enough heat and will allow the tip to drop in temperature. Remember that this type of soldering device stays hot so be careful where you lay the pencil down and don't burn its line cord or your hand.      A good solder to use with the pencil iron is a 60/40 tin and lead. I like to use .030-diameter rosin core solder.  This solder melts at around 370 degrees F. The rosin is a cleaning agent that is activated by heat and will allow the solder to bond to the base metal. Rosin core solder should always be used in our hobby, never acid core. I saw a pushrod the other day that a friend of mine had used acid core solder on. The rod had corroded and broke under load, it was on his elevator so he had a hard landing. Acid core is fine for sheet metal and radiator repair, but not around electrical devices because of corrosion.      For soldering large music wire a soldering gun makes the job much easier. A soldering gun operates on a different principle than does the soldering pencil. The gun has a transformer in the handle that transforms the 120 volts AC down to less than one volt, but delivers around 40 or 50 amps to the soldering tip. So it is the circulating current through the tip that heats it. Current flow through a resistance will create heat. Most soldering gun tips are equal to 10-awg copper. You can make your own tips from number 10 awg solid copper building wire and they will heat just as well as the bought ones.      To solder large music wire start by sanding the wire with some 150-grit paper to get it shinny. Then clean the wire with alcohol several times to remove all oils. Place some flux on the wire in addition to the flux in the core of the solder. You can buy rosin flux (past) in a small can at any hardware store. This past will really allow the solder to bond to the music wire and will not come loose in the future. I like to use a 210-watt Weller soldering gun for large jobs such as this because it is quick and efficient. Weller makes one of the best guns on the market for the type of soldering we need to do in our hobby. A gun such as this will come up to heat in a few seconds and will maintain that heat a lot better than a pencil.      The 210-watt soldering gun works fine, but if you want even faster results you can use a propane torch instead. It will bring the music wire up to heat a lot faster and ensure a better bond also. With a propane torch you will need to use a larger diameter solder than the .030 mentioned above. This is because you will need a faster flow of solder than can be provided with the .030 solder. A 1/8-inch diameter rosin core will work fine, but if you don't have any that large and you do have the small size, here is what you can do. Simply twist six or eight pieces of the small.030 diameter solder together and this will be even better that the 1/8-inch solder because it will have better flux control. Apply the heat to the wire and not the solder; let the hot wire melt the solder and not the flame.      For a really strong connection with music wire try this. Overlap the wires a couple of inches after they have been prepared as above. Wrap the two wires with some small copper wire over the two-inch overlap, keeping it tight as you go. You can get the small copper wire by stripping some 12-awg stranded wire and removing one strand. Fill the wire with flux and apply the heat. You will see the solder wick throughout the connection. When the wire is full of solder remove the heat and allow it to cool. You will have the best connection that can be made with solder.      Always keep the soldering gun tip tight. Heating and cooling over and over will cause a loose connection at the tip. This is the most common trouble when a gun stops heating. Also clean your tip often because the flux residue will build up on the tip. You can clean the tip by brushing it on a wet rag of sponge between each solder job.