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Soldering is a skill that can save you time and money by allowing you to do electronics work on your own guitars. Learn this easy skill, purchase a nice soldering tool, and you’ll never have to take your guitars to a tech for jack repairs, pot replacements, or pickup swaps. Soldering is not only easy, but it allows you more flexibility to test different components, something that would cost a fortune if you were paying a guitar tech.
This is the best soldering iron I’ve ever used, and I highly recommend it for guitars, amps, pedals, cables, and other instrument repairs. It can handle any of these applications easily. At 70 Watts it has enough power to get the soldering tip to 850 degrees. This is more than you’ll need for most applications, and for the majority of small electronics work I’m running mine right around 650 degrees.
Tgp: » Which Type Of Soldering Iron To Use For Guitar Electronics
Solder is a fusible metal alloy used to create a permanent bond between metal workpieces [1]. If you have two wires, or a wire and a pot lug, or a wire and an input jack lug (you get the idea), soldering allows you to fuse these pieces of metal together to form a bond which ideally provides no electrical resistance. I say “ideally” because that depends on the quality of the solder and soldering technique, more on that later.
There are different types of soldering, so don’t get this confused with jewelry soldering which can use irons or flame like butane. There’s also plumbing solder which again uses open flame from a torch as the heat source, and different forms of lead ratio solders depending on the type of pipes that are being fused together. Drainage or sewage waste pipes can be fused together using a higher lead content solder compared to clean, drinking water tap which must use a low lead solder type.
One of the most important qualities of solder (for electronics or plumbing) is that it has a very low melting point. That low melting temperature allows us to fuse together disparate pieces of metal without heating the separate components up to their melting temperatures, which would damage the components beyond repair.
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Electronics solder melts right around 361 ~ 374°F (183 ~ 190°C) for the Kester I recommend below, making it easy to reach that point using a standard soldering iron like we’ll explore next.
There are three main types of soldering irons that exist. Standalone irons with a set temperature output, soldering stations which allow for specific outputs to be set by a separate control unit, and soldering guns
Standalone irons are generally very cheap and most people have one coiled up in their junk drawer. You can typically get these around $20 – $30. The advantage of an iron like this is that it’s cheap, and for very simple jobs can do just fine soldering small parts together.
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If you have an iron like this, you can generally get away with using it for a little while, however you’re going to run up against its limitations pretty quickly.
Though some modern soldering irons have small adjustment knobs on them, I strongly suggest going with a good soldering station that gives full control over the temperature of the iron. This will ensure that you are only using the necessary heat for the components, while allowing for high settings when applicable.
Soldering stations have a unit which provides power to the attached soldering iron, and a dial allowing you to set the output temperature. This flexibility is important in setting the correct temperature for the components that are being soldered together.
Vastar Soldering Iron
Large joints with more mass need to be heated up quicker to keep the component from being damaged, while also having enough heat to create a good solder connection. Smaller joints, or heat sensitive parts like PC boards, require close attention to the amount of heat applied or damage will result very quickly. A soldering station allows for these small adjustments in output allowing for components to be soldered correctly without damage, and while creating a good electronic connection.
The best soldering station that I’ve ever used is the Weller WES51. This station is common amongst guitar and amp techs, and can be found on all the workbenches at amp companies like Dr. Z. It is simple and easy to use, with an On/Off switch and a temp dial right on the front. It comes with an iron stand which also provides a place for the sponge to go. A sponge is essential when soldering, and this is something most standalone irons don’t provide.
Buying one of these is a great investment. I have been using the Weller WES51 for the past 7 years and it still works great. Weller came out with a new model (which replaced the WES51), the WE1010NA which sports a great looking digital control panel for your temperature adjustments and the same soldering iron stand which is awesome and I can’t imagine too many improvements on that design.
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One of the major enhancements made on the new Weller soldering station is a standby mode which powers back when not using to conserve energy. This is a great feature as any soldering station or iron draws a good bit of power to stay hot.
The $100 price tag might initially be a deterrent away from a nice soldering station, however let’s take a look at some common repair costs. When I was doing guitar and amp repair I would typically charge $30 an hour for electronics work. This is on the low end of repair costs, which I’ve seen easily run up to the $60 mark. If you had a full pickup swap, and a new rewire of all your components, that could easily run up a $100 repair bill. You could spend the same amount of money to buy your own premium soldering station that you would for someone to do the electronics work for you. I always recommend to people if they have the slightest bit of handyness in their bones, or they want to learn, go pick up a nice soldering station. It’s something you will not regret doing.
And that brings us to our last type of soldering implement, the soldering gun. Now soldering guns are useful because they typically pack a much larger punch than a soldering iron. For example, this Weller soldering gun (pictured below) has an output of 260 Watts, while the Weller soldering station I recommend above puts out 70 Watts max.
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The higher output of the soldering gun can be incredibly useful if joining two large mass pieces of metal that require a large amount of energy to heat up. However, this is way too much heat for guitar and amp electronics and should be avoided at all costs.
Yes, soldering guns can damage components because of the excessive output of heat they provide. However the biggest reason to never use them around a guitar is that a soldering gun can ruin your pickups.
Soldering guns generate a high amount of amps which are supplied to the tip of the gun. These amps are created by a transformer which takes mains, outlet voltage and turns that into high amps via the transformer. Those high amps are then sent to the soldering tip to quickly heat up the tip element. Transformers, which are used extensively in musical gear like guitar amplifiers, generate an electromagnetic field when voltage is applied to the primary coil.
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The electromagnetic field created by a soldering gun is so strong that if used in close proximity to a guitar’s pickup, it can remagnetize or demagnetize the bar magnets or pole pieces in ways which may alter the sound of the pickup.
I know it may be tempting to use what you have lying around the house, but whatever you do, do not use a soldering gun close to your guitar pickups.
While there are solderless systems out there, the vast majority of pickups and components require solder work to install. In fact I’d stay clear from these solderless systems as they become very difficult to work on if they begin to fall apart, which I’ve seen a lot of them do.
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One incredibly common repair is replacing, or resoldering the output jack. Often these come loose and start to wiggle around. If this movement continues it will typically spin the wires around enough to break them off their solder joints, or compromise the solder joints enough to lose a good electrical connection.
Replacing pots is also fairly common as they can suffer the same fate as in the output jack. Pots can also go bad over time and old pots are generally plagued by dirty resistive elements that crackle and pop even after a good cleaning.
As the aftermarket boutique pickup market has sprung up, so has the number of pickup swap requests. Swapping pickups can be fun and rewarding, turning a lower end guitar, or one that just doesn’t agree with
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