Removing humbucker covers...

[devnull]

does nobody use solder wick?

Or a Solder Sucker? Used it many times to remove PCB components.

Although I also prefer any method that keeps heat and magnetic fields away from the pickup, while leaving most of my body parts still attached.

[HTH]

Or a Solder Sucker? Used it many times to remove PCB components.

Although I also prefer any method that keeps heat and magnetic fields away from the pickup, while leaving most of my body parts still attached.

my solder sucker doesn't work very good when removing pickup covers - solder wick works much better. actually, I prefer solder wick all round - it's just cleaner and more effective, imo.

that stanley blade trick sounds dicey - I've already sliced a 1/2" cut in my thumb with a fresh stanley blade so I tend to stay clear of those things.

[Billy Bones]

Struggled with this any time I had to go inside a humbucker. That trick where you just cut through the solder is a lifesaver. Didn't occur to me that it would be soft enough to cut. Thanks!

Billy

[Spence]

Always a pleasure. Glad it worked out.

[J S Moore]

I've always dreaded taking off covers until I read this thread. Cutting the solder really works great.

[belwar]

does nobody use solder wick?

I bought a spool of the stuff and couldnt make it work for sheet. Right in the trash it went. I think all the options are just poorman solder pumps :/ I wish I could afford one of those...

[Possum]

..

I never had any luck with solder wicks or solder suckers either. I'll see if I can post the attachment for the razor blade method. Also if you are constantly putting covers on and off I put some tape over the unexposed part of the baseplate where you solder the cover too, it keeps solder from dripping down inside the cover and holding, which can make it a bitch to get through sometimes.....

[Joe Gwinn]

I bought a spool of the stuff (solder wick) and couldn't make it work for sheet. Right in the trash it went.

Solder wick does work, but it has to be clean and bright, and fluxing it often helps a lot. Old and/or poor quality wick will fail. There is no magic in this. One is soldering the wires in the wick, and if those wires are not clean enough to solder, nothing will happen.

The trick is to smear the wick with a little bit of plumbers flux, the stuff that's used for soldering copper pipe.

[kevinT]

I tried both the wick and the sucker and found both to be pretty much useless for this particular application.

I've even only tried the blade method but that doesn't work for me either. I'm putting a lot of force in it and nothing gives. ...i'm just afraid when it does, it will be my finger that takes the brunt of it.

Forget using the Dremmel to cut joints. ...it's messy and a PITA.

What works for me is heating the joint and inserting a razor blade between the baseplate and cover and leaving it there. You do the same thing to the other side and then lift off the cover.

Which brings me to another point, what do you guys do when you get one of those runaway hidious-looking monster solder joints? I've gottin' really good at doing them, but once in a while back in the day, I would do one that would get unruly because it wouldn't bond (probably because I didn't clean the site well enough...my bad).

All I could do was add more solder to the blob to make it prettier. Anybody else have any tricks to make an ugly solder joint look pretty?

[Possum]

...

Just add more solder :-) Actually you can clean all the solder off and start over, sort of. Heat the solder joint and hold a wadded paper towel right next to the blob then quicly wipe it off when its molten. You can get all of it off after a couple times but it does leave a bright stain, maybe you could sand it a bit or something. I have to replace covers constantly in testing so I will clean the solder out of the cover using this method, I clamp the cover to do it and wipe it out otherwise you get big blobs inside that can cut the coils eventually, I also wipe off the edge of the baseplate and put tape over that area when closing the cover to make it easier to open. I use the StewMac razor blade method I posted. Its the best method but occasionally in repeatedly swapping covers out, solder will get in way down deep in the joint If I don't tape it off and it becomes impossible to heat the whole thing up, so gotta get the utility knife out which I hate using and have sliced a piece of finger off before. So far I have not yet cut a coil in any of the methods, knock on wood....

[soundmasterg]

Solder suckers don't work too well when trying to get solder off a flat surface, but they work great when getting solder out of eyelets or things like that. You need a good one though...Radio Shack actually sells a pretty good one that I use all the time on amp work.

Cutting the joint after heating works best for me on humbucker covers too. You can get it to heat a little faster by putting fresh solder on the soldering iron tip before you touch it to the baseplate btw. Better heat transfer that way.

Greg

[salvarsan]

Solder suckers don't work too well when trying to get solder off a flat surface, ...

Consumer grade desolderers from Radio Shack are tolerable, barely.

Industrial desolderer/rework stations do a much better job,
if you can justify the price.


-drh

[voodoochild]

I've tried just about everything from using a dremel tool to a soldering iron. It wasn't until I bought an 80 watt iron that I discovered how easy it could really be. Literally 2 seconds with the 80 watt iron and slip a razor blade between the baseplate and cover. Done. It focuses the heat so fast in that one spot that it doesn't have time to overheat anything else around it like a lower wattage iron will do. That is of course unless you hold the 80 watt iron on there for too long.

[soundmasterg]

Consumer grade desolderers from Radio Shack are tolerable, barely.

Industrial desolderer/rework stations do a much better job,
if you can justify the price.


-drh

I was talking about the solder sucker they sell...as far as those go, they sell a decent one. A desoldering station is of course a much better solution, though the expense of those puts them out of the reach of many people.

Greg

[salvarsan]

A desoldering station is of course a much better solution, though the expense of those puts them out of the reach of many people.

I bought a half dozen parts-grade PACE MBT's and made a working frankenstein for $120 back when the broken ones were cheap. Alas, no longer.

In 10 years, the hand tool 'extractor' part has gone from $80 to $300, which puts them out of reasonable consideration.

The guys with 80 watt irons and razor blades have pickup cover removal pretty well taken care of, in my opinion.

-drh