It’s useful and fulfills a gap in the current available research. What’s not “best” about that?
2 Likes
I dunno. Mostly I feel like I’m not doing anything particularly hard with that. The procedure will have to be modified, and there’s some paper research that I have yet to do, but I’m basically just swiping the method wholesale with little original thought. I’m not saying it’s pointless, I just wish there something more to sink my teeth into. But again, I still have to do some literature searches and dry lab it a little before I can say how much the method will have to be modified and how much effort is going to go into it. Maybe it will be harder than I think.
1 Like
She’s wearing them because they look good! But they look like chainsawing safety glasses to me. Orange-yellow colors are good for working in extremely variable light conditions, like brilliant sunlight mixed with deep shade. I use them. You don’t want to be temporarily blinded because you adjusted your position slightly while making a tricky cut.
Good point about piping. I can testify that it’s an issue when desoldering 50 year old pipes with a propane torch. Propane’s slow compared to MAPP or hotter gases, and I don’t know how that affects the amount vaporized. On the other hand I’ve had a lot of kester rosin-core electronic solder smoke go up my nose without any noticeable effect.
The best policy with stuff like mercury, lead and cadmium is to avoid exposure whenever you can, so that during an accidental exposure, you aren’t already carrying a cumulative load. This is why no amount of mercury should be legal in medical or food products if there is any alternative. Unnecessary exposure strips away your capacity to withstand accidental exposures.
3 Likes
Samantha, have you seen my headphone band? I can’t seem to…
Oh, hey. That’s not—what are… Never mind.
1 Like
I cut hardened spring wire a lot, and even though I wear glasses I have the habit of shutting my eyes for a moment at the actual clip. I’ve had things ricochet off my cheeks into my eyes.
3 Likes
“Beautiful woman repair soldering a printed circuit board.”
As opposed to “Ugly woman repair soldering a printed circuit board?”
Or as it is correctly known - English 
1 Like
cool, thanks. the wellers still get hot in <10s, so they’re fine for me.
That may not work well. Mercury is much more volatile.
Try a bath of molten lead with defined surface and temperature, and blow defined amount of air over it (slowly to not cool the top surface of the bath) and bubble it through a defined amount of solution that will absorb it, dissolve it and bind it into a bright colored complex. Then use spectrophotometry to measure its concentration. Good old Lambert-Beer is a friend here.
2 Likes
Rock out with your caulk out!
3 Likes
Good idea for creating a positive control. I think that’s part of what I’m exploring though. If I get no vaporized lead, then I’ve demonstrated something important about the potential hazards of soldering without ventilation. My goal is to replicate normal soldering heats and pressures. It may prove more complicated if it somehow complexes with rosin, though. Again, need to do my homework on this. I’ve had other research ideas before that I thought were brilliant, but fell apart on paper rather quickly.
2 Likes
Welcome in engineering. 
Every researcher and every inventor has a graveyard of ideas in their basement.
Sometimes you have to dig more levels of the basement to fit them all in.
2 Likes
pfft, soldering guns. this is how i solder, and noones gonna change me.
5 Likes
Did you pronounce every “l”?
Can you show me how to handle 0402-sized parts with this?
Can you put it on youtube for some shared schadenfreude fun? 
I never said I had a working circuit after soldering.
(I’m a metal on metal solderer–i can make solder flow upstream and set with a flick of the torch :D)
4 Likes
I did some little flame soldering on pipes both water/HVAC-grade and gutter-sized, and some brazing of smaller parts. It’s fun!
Point taken. But still, could be fun to watch!
Or Fowey.
That’s pronounced “Foy”, in case it’s a bit too obscure.
Orthopaedic surgeons hold fractures straight by driving “K-wires” across the break. They often need cutting short so they don’t catch. The surgeon is supposed to hold the end that will be discarded with pliers, but they sometimes forget. So flying spring wire fragments with blood on them …
3 Likes
For me it was screwing around making stuff like electric boats, but the olfactory memory thing is weird. I use solder frequently, but only sometimes does it “smell like that” and trigger the memory. Same thing with beer, every once in while a beer smells like the first beer I ever had.
4 Likes
