cleaning up solder?

[heinz]

let's say you received a guitar that has goopy solder all over the pots like mr. magoo worked on it.

how do you guys clean up excess solder off electronics without f*cking 'em up? I'm pretty handy with a solder gun on newer stuff but when it's all ooky ahky I get nervous. Thanks-

 

[Davepaf]

Use a solder sucker.
Its a little vacuume pump made to suck up heated solder. You can get them at Radio Shack but they suck. (I mean dont suck good.) Find a good electronics store and get a Solderpult II or III, I havent looked at mine for a while but similar to that kind is the best Ive come across.

 

[Snags]

I use a combination of a solder sucker and de-soldering braid, which really cleans up surfaces nicely, even those that had birdshit blobs on them.

 

[Ed Rafalko]

You can use a rubber bulb, too- I have one somewhere that has a little plastic tube in it . I squeeze the bulb, heat the solder, then put the tip of the bulb into the liquid metal and let go . It sucks iut right clean.
But Solder Braid is the best way, if you ask me. It acts as a heat sync so you don't accidentally burn a component.

 

[heinz]

thanks guys... appreciate the advice.

 

[BrianGWN]

I still have a hand held solder sucker from my tech days with the Burroughs computer company back in the mid 1980s (hmmm end of Norlin era, end of Burroughs, coincidence??).
For those not familiar with a solder sucker, it's sort of like a needle in reverse. Instead of forcing outwards, it's a spring loaded sucking device (hey no double meaning there). You hold it in one hand working the knob with your thumb to load up the spring tension, then while using a soldering iron in the other hand to heat the solder connection in question you hold the tip of the solder sucker up close and flick the knob causing it to inhale abruptly. The tip is usually some kind of durable heat resistant material, but the tip section should be removeable to periodically get the sucked up solder bits out.

Ed's rubber bulb is basically a smaller scale version of the same thing.

If I come across a pot with a lot of crap on it, and especially if I want to be able to see the numbers or date code, I'll take it out of the guitar. I'll hold it in a vise by the shaft between a couple of pieces of wood, and I may use small wire brush (along with a soldering iron) to work away the solder blobs.

 

[Ed Rafalko]

I have both the solder sucker ANd the bulb. The braid works best, after you've removed a lot of it with the sucker or the bulb. The problem with teh sucker and bulb is, the solder hardens into little tiny lead pellets that get everywhere and clog everything. They roll out of the tip of the bulb right into your work. The sucker's 'needle' clogs with liquid metal and then gets clogged.

 

[Tonefiend]

I need to get a bulb. I have a few sizes of braid, but it's kind of a pain in the ass sometimes.