A Solder Dispenser For Bench And Field Use

This dispenser is for thin solder so it might most useful in PCBoard work.  I wanted a way to have clean untangled solder at hand for whatever I was working on at the time.  I got an idea one day to clean the residual ink out of a bic white barrel ink penand clean out the internal ink tube and seperate the ball point from the plastic tip the ink tube fitted into.  If you take the inner tube out of the tip. you can run a length of solder through the tube and wrap it around the tube.  if you cover the length of the tube with wraps, you can then loosen the wraps a little along the length by twisting the wraps against the spiral.  This allows the solder to feed easier and shortens the wrapped area to let the tube go back into the tip.  To clean the ink from the tube, I use a bit of wadded up paper towel with alcohol on it driven through the tube with a wire.  I use a good degreaser spray to flush out the tip from the narrow end over a sink.

This pic shows the inner tube being wrapped with the solder.  This holds roughly 13 feet of solder.


This pic shows the end of the tube where the spiral pulls through the tube, keeping it from tangling while dispensing.


This pic shows the assembled spiral, tube and tip with some prewound spirals and the barrel of the pen.  the cap still functions and keeps everything neat and clean.

super trick !.. thanks 75x11

Thanks for sharing, 75!   

WC

No problem. I started making and using these about 20 years ago. I see there is a guy on Ebay selling something like these now. It's also fun to watch someone grab one off the bench and try to write with it before they realize what it is.