How to Use a Soldering Iron on Glass

Video Transcript

The cool thing about soldering irons is that the tips are interchangeable so you can buy one iron if it is a quality iron. Tips do kind of wear out and go bad over time you know if you use them a lot so it is nice if you can just replace the tips and not have to buy a whole new iron. But there are different kinds of tips and so it is important to think about this if you are getting the right kind of tip for a stained glass project, you know not all soldering irons are meant only for stained glass. I mean you can also use a soldering iron for electronics for example and some soldering iron you might already have at home might be, have a tip on it that is more suited for electronics. Tips that are more suited for electronics are kind of pointy tips, rounded tips, you know really fine tips, you can use those for a very fine scale stained glass project but if you are doing something larger what you are going to want is a tip that has more of a wedge shape. It basically looks like a flat-head screwdriver, okay, just kind of between an eighth of an inch to maybe a quarter of an inch and again it kind of looks like a wedge, a flat-head screwdriver. The nice thing about that is, especially if you are working with lead cane, you can press down on the joint and kind of have this flat even application of heat. Now today, I actually do have a round tip on my soldering iron because me personally, when I work with copper foil and I am doing kind of a fine panel with the little joints I find a fine tip. I personally find I have a lot more control over a fine tip, but a lot of stained glass artists would say, no you should always use a flat tip, you know a wedge shaped tip so it is kind of a personal choice but you know if you are starting out you might want to try with one of those flat wedge shaped tips that kind of look like a flat head screwdriver and otherwise. Then as you work with it a little bit you might decide to try some other tips and like the cool thing that I said, that tips are interchangeable so that you could buy a few different ones and see which ones work well for you.

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