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Summary: Learn about soldering and other equipment and techniques for circuit bending in this free video series that will help you understand how and when to utilize this unique way of making music.
Views: 249 | Tags: tools, guitar, music, circuit, electronic, what, books, is, bending, sk-1, mijam, circuit bending
About the Expert
Amanda Claire Amanda Claire is a lifelong artist, currently living in Austin, Texas, who specializes in all realms of unique crafts. read more
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Questions & AnswersAMANDA CLAIRE: And, so, obviously, if you're going to have a soldering iron and you're going to be soldering, you also need solder. Solder is interestingly spelled, S-O-L-D-E-R, solder, kind of like soldier without the letter "I", I guess. Well that's right. Anyway, you can get it in electronic stores, you can get it in hardware stores. There are different kinds, most of them are based on lead; there are some lead free solders, this is one that actually doesn't have any lead on it. Let's see, what's this one? I think it might have nickel or silver in it. I have to claim a little bit of ignorance about what metals are in solder, but the point is they are low melting point metals, that the point of solder is you can melt it at a fairly low, for metal, melting point. And you dab it to the wires in the ceratin parts of a circuit board when you want to make a joint. And then when it cools, it gets hard and so there you have kind of permanent, kind of metal joint that can be very easily removed or changed later with the soldering iron again if you want to. So that's the kind of point of soldering. Solder generally comes in spools. This is a spool that's almost empty but I brought it, just to show you this is a much a thicker solder than this one, this spool is almost full, you can see that is much sort of thinner one. It's really kind of a personal preference, I mean. I guess I would say I kind of like the one that's a little bit thicker and they make solder spools that are even thicker than this, I mean where those solders kind of a lot thicker. And that might if you get solder a little bit thicker than--let's see this one is 0.050 diameter, 60/40 solder. So, anything that is much more, kind of a, higher diameter than this might get a little bit sloppy when you're circuit bending, but this stuff is fine too. It's a little bit narrower, but the point is it's a flexible metal, low melting point, different kinds out there. This is one without lead, which means that while it's smoking, it's not as sort of hazardous to your health when you're not breathing the fumes. Also something to think about, you don't want to necessarily breathe the fumes when you're soldering. A lot of them will say rosin core solder, so. But anyway, you need to have some solder on hand. Again, if it's solder that's made for electronics, you're in pretty good shape and, but you probably want to use a coil where the diameter of the solder is fairly narrow.
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