[Boatanchors] Those Harbor 'Fright' Soldering guns revisted

[Phil]

Quite a long time ago I mentioned here that I bought a HF Soldering Gun, 
it seemed like a good buy on sale at about $14, and I guess it is.

It's ostensibly a 180W iron, the factory tips are pretty poor quality 
and don't last long at all in regular service (and yes, I DO know how to 
ride the trigger on the soldering gun to keep from overheating them).

HF does NOT sell replacement tips for their solder-guns, leaving you the 
choice of making your own out of heavy gauge copper wire, or 
substituting  Weller tips, available at my local hardware store.  You 
need to get the tips for their 100/140W gun, not the ones for the heavy 
duty guns though.  You need the 7135W tips.

HOWEVER, the square shank Weller tips will NOT fit into the smaller 
round holes of the HF Soldering Gun, you have to file off the square 
corners of the tip a bit.  Once you do that they'll fit and work just 
fine.  They heat fast, and keep in mind that the 180W of the HF guns 
will probably eat up tips faster than the Weller does, unless your 
careful of the duty cycle time you hold the trigger in.

I've always liked the Weller tips, so all is Hunky Dory now. . .

-- 
73 de Phil,  KO6BB
http://www.qsl.net/ko6bb/  (Web Page)

PRESENT RADIOS:
Grundigs:    S-350 (~2006), G6 (2011) & S450DLX (2014).
HOMEBREW:    7 Tube+Rect Regenerative RX for LF (built 2015)
Icom:        R-75 With Cascaded 250 & 125Hz CW Filters. (~2005)
Icom:        IC-7200 Transceiver (~2015).
Radio Shack: DX-380 digital portable (~1990).
Zenith:      Royal-7000 Transoceanic Portable (~1968).

ACCESSORIES: HOMEBREW LF-MF Pre-Amp, MFJ-993B HF Auto-Tuner.
              HOMEBREW 8 Hz Audio Filter.

ANTENNAS:  88 foot Long Ladder-line fed dipole at 35 feet AGL for MW/SW.
            HOMEBREW Active Mini-Whip at 36 Feet AGL for LF/MW/SW.
            HOMEBREW 37 foot "Low Noise Vertical" at 11 feet AGL for LF/MW/SW.

Merced, Central California, 37, 18, 37N   120, 30, 6W CM97rh