Personally I like the 20/40 pencils for radio work.
Those squeeze bulb de-soldering tools got as much use as the pencils when I had my place.
Whoever invented that solder soaker wick crap had his head way up his **** and they still sell the stuff. For what I haven't a clue.
And yes ALWAYS replace that reverse current diode.
They still have them at radio shack however they will in all likelihood not be selling them for long. )^%&^$^%%^$ RAT SHACK
As far as big 'ol gun irons go,,,,,I got tired of cleaning and screwing with the tips. I used them to replace pills for awhile until one of my customers gave me a roofer's iron. Now that worked great for pills!
As for burned traces I've found plenty. I just use a pen knife to scrape the laquer off the ends and patch them with a few strands of twisted copper conductor out of multi strand 20ga or so wire and then coat that with clear finger nail polish,,,,sometimes.
Those squeeze bulb de-soldering tools got as much use as the pencils when I had my place.
Whoever invented that solder soaker wick crap had his head way up his **** and they still sell the stuff. For what I haven't a clue.
And yes ALWAYS replace that reverse current diode.
They still have them at radio shack however they will in all likelihood not be selling them for long. )^%&^$^%%^$ RAT SHACK
As far as big 'ol gun irons go,,,,,I got tired of cleaning and screwing with the tips. I used them to replace pills for awhile until one of my customers gave me a roofer's iron. Now that worked great for pills!
As for burned traces I've found plenty. I just use a pen knife to scrape the laquer off the ends and patch them with a few strands of twisted copper conductor out of multi strand 20ga or so wire and then coat that with clear finger nail polish,,,,sometimes.
...runna pile-up on 6m SSB