Soldering Techniques?

[RobertInOntario]

I don't add wire at the joints and I try not to have blobs of solder -- it should disappear inside. If you had wire jumpers it would be around expansion joints and the actual joint shouldn't be solid.
When I solder feeder wires I have a ton of assorted clips. There are soldering tweezers made of some material that doesn't take solder; I've found that most other tweezers will solder up. When I'm soldering up I may have a ton of metal bits around the joint -- tweezers, clamps and heat sinks. I like to tin the wire and the side of the rail. I take the straight bare end of the wire and make a slight bend in it so that there is a spring that holds the wire against the rail; sometimes I spike the wire to hold it as I solder.

Thanks, David.

As noted below, I think I'll try using file clamps as I have several of those.

I wasn't sure what you meant by saying that the solder "should disappear inside" -- do you mean inside the track or inside/onto the rails?

Good point about not keeping the actual joint solid. I can see how that would be a problem when temperature/humidity changes cause the track to expand or contract -- I guess I'm going to have to fix some of my track-joins where I HAVE actually soldered them as one solid join. :cry: Instead, I'll experiment with soldering some wire jumpers around the joins, and do so via using these clamps.

Thanks again -- this is helpful.

Rob