Everything that I have explained how to do up until now has hopefully been pretty close to how things should be done "the right way" when soldering. Soldering, however, is just a process of joining things together to make a connection. If you don't have all the tools to solder, but still want to learn how to solder something, never fear, with just solder and some wire you can practice bare bones soldering.
Bare bones soldering comes in handy when you're stuck on a desert island and you need to make a repair to your headphones so you can watch the sun go down while being serenaded by your most recent whale songs cd. It's also a cool trick to pull off next time your decide to be MacGuyver for Halloween.
I took some pieces of wire and stripped them with my teeth - the best method for doing this I have found is use my molars. I just grab the insulation with my teeth, try to sever the insulation a bit, and then pull on the wire. It's easiest to do with braided wires, and it certainly takes a little practice to apply the right tension so you don't just rip the wire apart entirely. But once you get the hang of it it's actually a pretty functional method. (WARNING: I do not encourage stripping wire your teeth at all,
solder ring brass fittings,
solder ring bronze fittings,
solder ring copper fittings,and it will probably lead to expensive dentistry work if you do it enough.)
presolder brass fittings,presolder
Bronze Fittings,
presolder copper fittings Once I had the wires stripped and twisted together I got a lighter and a bit of solder and went to work heating up the wires I wanted to join. It took the lighter about as long to heat up the wires as it did when I used the iron. I then fed a little solder into the joint, continued heating the wire to smooth things out, and then turned off the flame.
It worked just as well as it would have had I used an iron. Of course it's harder, if not impossible ,to use this method on circuit boards, but it sure does the job on wire. I have heard that using matches also works well when soldering wires.
