What type of Solder should I use?

[mathman]

I was rewiring an older guitar but my solder won't stick to the volume pots. Could it just be old? ( it is old) What kind of solder should I buy?

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

60/40 lead free flux core...

[Andrew]

Audiophile Silver Solder is best.

Two reasons for not sticking. Pot backs could be dirty so try cleaning or fluxing. Or you just aren't getting the pots hot enough for the solder to form an amalgam with the metal surface - try a bigger wattage soldering iron.

[Jason01]

What these guys said, your solder isn't old or expired. Try fluxing it first. It takes alot of heat to get the solder to stick to the pots so I usually try to lay the tip of the iron on the pot to get as much of the surface area of the tip in contact with the pot to heat it as quick as I can. If there's old solder on the pot thats a good place to start melting since the solder heats up faster than the pot metal.

[Bloozguy]

Get a roll of 63/37 flux core wire solder. That is 63% tin (Sn) and 37% lead (Pb).

If your solder is flux core it definitely has a shelf life and the flux material may have lost its reactive properties. Small rolls are cheap and you'll be surprised at the difference fresh flux makes in the soldering process.

Also, make sure you have a high enough wattage iron and the tip is clean and well tinned. Make sure the backs of the pots are clean and free of old flux residue, etc.

Whatever you do, DON'T use lead-free or RoHS compliant solder. Folks in the EU are stuck with it but fortunately we are not. I won't get into the metallurgical reasons behind it, but it is unreliable, very difficult to make a good solder joint with, and more dangerous to use because of flux vapors caused by the higher melting point.

Shredmeister has two amps that were nearly brand new and were experiencing volume drops once they warmed up. The cause was lousy lead-free solder joints. Once they were re-melted with a little tin/lead solder they worked fine and have ever since.

I work for an electronics contract manufacturing company and most people in the business agree that lead-free stuff absolutely sucks! The Department of Defense mandates a minimum percentage of lead in all soldered assemblies because lead-free has failed all of their reliability testing.

Good luck and sorry for the rant!

[veatch]

^^^

This. Kester 44 has been pretty consistent for my use, but aside from the occasional guitar/amp project, i really don't solder anywhere near as much as i used to. So don't take my word for it...

The RoHS stuff is horrible to work with, though....

[mathman]

Thanks!

[backinit]

Try using an eraser on the back of the pots.