Damaging Components/PuPs

[atj]

Hi everyone,

i'm hoping i've posted this in the right place of this fine forum. 

I plan on trying out the 50s wiring in my Les Paul with Mule calibrated set.  I'm also gonna try some different caps as well to experiment with my sound.  My question is can too much soldering and desoldering damage the components or pickups?  I already had to solder and desolder them a few times when putting them in cause something wasnt right with the way I did it first time around.

Thanks

[Toe-Knee]

at the most you will risk damaging the pots but if you are quick with the iron and let the pot cool between soldering each ground to it you will be fine

[Frank]

Pots are easily damaged if you let them get too hot for too long. Capacitors are a bit more resilient but again, don't overheat them. Stay well away from the pickup coils, those bad boys can be susceptible to breakage!

Just remember to heat the two contacts then touch the solder to the hot contact and let it melt and flow. If you melt a glob of solder on your iron and try dabbing it on then you'll get a nasty dry solder joint that will fail in no time.

[FELINEGUITARS]

One thing that is worth considering when doing all this is your solder
REcently I have given up trying to get along with lead free solder
It takes more heat to get it melted and even then it's pretty rubbish

Frank at JPF put me onto a silver content solder and I seriously haven't looked back

http://www.rapidonline.com/Tools-Equipment/Future-HF-halide-free-no-clean-cored-solder-60028

Works really well and the solder melts easily and even more crucially goes hard again quickly resulting in fewer burnt fingers.

I have also resorted to two different soldering irons. one with a semi pointed tip for soldering wires to tags and one with a big chisel type tip for soldering the back of pots etc
A 25w Antex XS iron is the latter and I am so glad I started having the large tip iron available as it can melt the solder to the back of a pot quickly and easily and once again minimises heating time so better for components and fingers.

Remember molten solder flows TOWARDS heat, so knowing that will enable you to get in and apply heat and solder and get a neat job hopefully

[atj]

Thanks guys for this great information. As long as I keep it quick and solder properly I should be ok.

I'm definitely going to have a look at my solder i'm using.  I think it's the lead free stuff.  Might try this silver content solder and also look at my iron.  Up until now i've just been using a standard tip you get with the 30W Antex Iron from Maplins here in the uk.

Thanks again

[Toe-Knee]

Thanks guys for this great information. As long as I keep it quick and solder properly I should be ok.

I'm definitely going to have a look at my solder i'm using.  I think it's the lead free stuff.  Might try this silver content solder and also look at my iron.  Up until now i've just been using a standard tip you get with the 30W Antex Iron from Maplins here in the uk.

Thanks again

one of those irons & tips even though i had the 18w version lasted me through many guitars a couple of amps and a fair few fx pedals. Its still actually alive and kicking too i just upgraded to a temperature controlled station though to make things easier.

[jpfamps]

The lead-free solders have a significantly higher melting temperature than the leaded, and if you use this then you stand a much higher chance of rogering components.

The regular (ie cheap) lead-free from Maplin is hopeless; don't use this.

If you have to use lead-free solder (and you don't), then the silver loaded is better, but more expensive.

Any leaded solder will be easier to use than any lead-free. There are plenty of peaople selling small amounts of this on eBay if you don't want to go to the expense of a large roll.