Soldering Part 2: Hand Tools

In Solder Part 1, I discussed soldering tools. This article will focus on the necessary tools that I use for soldering. In general, these are basic hand tools, but I note some especially nice (and affordable) tools for certain applications, as well as chat about my experiences with different kinds of tools. The contents of the Red Box, as well as the soldering tools discussed in the previous section, constitutes everything you need to do reasonable (but slow) circuit board assembly work.

Before we go on about tools, one brief thing: If you get into building things seriously, don’t skimp on tools. Buy what you need, but get quality stuff. Lots of people sell these “starter kits” of tools that are a bunch of crappy tools. There’s a reason professional mechanics use Snap-On and electricians buy Klein. I get excited about buying tools. I want to play with them and generally get a good feel for how the tool fits. I tend to look at pawn shops and used tool stores for quality equipment. I’d rather buy used quality tools than new crappy tools, but ideally I buy new quality tools.

That being said, you don’t need to race out and drop $5,000 on a great big box of tools. I’ve been collecting tools, and buying new things when required for years, and now have a pretty reasonable stash of quality equipment. Much of it is old stuff, like my favorite pliers, but good tools will take a lot to wear out.

The Little Red Box

All my small hand tools live in the little red box

As with most of my tools, I need to keep myself easily portable for field work when the job calls. As such, I carry all my small tools inside my little red box. Typically when I am working in the field I take the type of equipment I expect to use on-site. Most of my hand tools fit inside two Craftsman tool bags, but things like tiny screwdrivers and tweezers get lost and crushed when put inside a bigger bag with crescent wrenches and hammers. Hence, the use of the little red box. Originally, this box had a small socket wrench set, but for the last decade or so I’ve had this box full of tiny useful things. This box gets tossed into my bigger tool bags. I’ll give you a tour through my Little Red Box, describing its contents, their use, and where I got it. This article is supposed to deal with soldering, and you will find that much of what is in the Little Red Box is directly applicable to this purpose.

All my common tiny tools, on display

The contents of my little red box fall into seven categories:

1. Tools to hold things
2. Tools to strip and cut things
3. Tools to sand and clean things
4. Tools to screw things
5. Tools to write with
6. Random necessities
7. Tools to scratch, clean, and gouge tiny things

Nearly any time I am working with electronics, I’ll probably have the little read box open and available. Having a hinged lid also helps, as I can use the open box as a tool stand if I need a place to stand up other tools while I’m working.

Tools to hold things

Tweezers and small pliers for holding things

When soldering or working with any small things, having good small tools is important. Above is a picture of my pliers and tweezers. The top is a biggish pair of needle nose pliers- These are my favorite tool, ever. I got these when I was like six years old from a rusty old toolbox in my grandfather’s basement. They’re Klein, more than 40 years old, plain, and very useful.

I use these pliers for bending wires and connectors, as a heatsink for holding components, and as pliers for general work. Note that these are quite beefy for needle nose pliers. I use the fatter flat part at the back for forming pins, and the front for pulling parts out while desoldering. I have kit full of several sizes of smaller needle nose pliers, but in general the jaws are too flimsy for a lot of the work I need to do. I also use these a lot of fishing out screws and holding tiny nuts. I don’t like spring-return needle nose pliers, but that’s probably just because I’m used to the way I hold these.

The bottom two pairs of tweezers are just crappy $3.00 tweezers from a surplus store. I use these for wire bending and holding components. Notice that one is bent wide than the other. I tend to use the wider ones when working with bigger packages, and the smaller ones when working with smaller components. Eventually I’ll get some new tweezers to replace these.

In the middle are a new discovery, suggested by my neighbor, when we were wondering around the other night shopping. These are beauty tweezers meant for plucking hairs manufactured by Tweezerman. These have a ground and rounded front tip, and are probably the most epic tweezers I have ever used for surface mount work. They don’t open up enough to pick up QFPs and such, but for discrete caps and resistors, these are fantastic. I may go back and get another pair from TJ Maxx, as they were on sale for $8.50. Apparently, they have a lifetime sharpness guarantee which means they’ll re-grind the tips if you need them done. Tweezerman also make a slant-tip version of these, and some extremely fine point ones as well.

Tools to strip and cut things

Tools used for stripping and cutting

That’s it. I’ve got a cheap pair of red-handled wire strippers, and a small pair of wire cutters. I’ve tried lots of different ways to strip wire, and for most small wire these red-handled ones work great for me. These aren’t for everyone. I’ve developed a feeling for stripping wires of all kinds of sizes with these, where I can just feel where the insulation tears and get a clean strip on coax, telco cable, Cat5, and many other cable types. I do have other tools for stripping, but I find those red-handled combination stripper/cutters to be among the most versatile, hence the reason they are in the little red box. I just did a brief search to find someone who sells these, but apparently even Radio Shack has changed their cheap basic wire stripper.

On wire cutters: Don’t cut screws, bolts, or really thick solid wire with these. You’ll blunt the cutting edges, and you’ll end up either bending the wire or just denting it. I’ve got a set of big angle-cutters in my tool bag I use for larger wires, and I use these smaller ones only for IC pins, small scale wire, and cutting my 0.1″ headers down to size. You could possibly cut your toenails I guess, but don’t use your small wire cutters for cutting PC boards, screws, non-copper metal, thick plastics. If you leave a dent when you try and cut it, you need to use a different tool. Also, they’ll last longer if you tend to cut towards the back where the hinge is, rather than at the front of the jaws.

Tools to sand and clean things

Sanding and cleaning tools

That’s two strips of sandpaper of different grits, a pencil eraser, and a partially broken emery board for finger nails. You may be asking why I keep these things in my little red box: Connectors and magnet wire. If you ever need to make things out of enameled magnet wire, you will find that it cannot be stripped. You need to sand the wire to get the enamel off.

Also, having sandpaper on hand is generally very handy. You can use it to clean up holes in plastic, sand down a circuit board to fit inside of a slightly too-small box, and use it to clean up rusted or fire-damaged connectors in a pinch. I was on a service call once fixing a device that had been severely water damaged. This device took plug-in modules with edge connectors, which we fixed back in the shop. However, we couldn’t get a new wiring harness on site in time to get the customer’s equipment running, so I used the sand paper and emery board to clean corrosion off the inside of the edge connectors would mate properly. That’s the main reason I keep that emery board in there- It’s just about the same width as a standard circuit board, and can be used to clean out card edge connector sockets (think ISA and PCI connectors).

Also, the pencil eraser. Pencil erasers can be used to do any number of useful cleaning tasks. This eraser has been in the little red box since I was in high school. Pencil erasers work great to clean card edge contacts. They can also be used to clean up flux and goo from a solder pads when a component is removed. They can also be used to erase pencil markings, should you ever have to do that.

Tools to screw things

Tools used to tighten and loosen things

To keep my tiny screwdrivers from getting crunched, they also live in in the little red box. I’ve got multiple sizes of flat and Phillips head. The reason I have several is that these are common “loaner items” when working with other people, since no one ever seems to have a small enough screwdriver to tighten up the wire on that terminal block.

As a note on screwdrivers: It may seem like a good idea to get one of those all-in-one micro screwdrivers with a bunch of bits that snap into a handle, but unless the bits are quite long, or the shaft is quite narrow, you will find that the actual screwdriver tip will not always fit all the way in to the terminal block you are trying to tighten.

Also in here, at the bottom, is my wire-wrap tool. I haven’t done wire wrapping in a while, but of note is that the back of th wire-wrap tool comes off to reveal a very tiny wire stripper for wire wrap wire. I can’t strip wire wrap wire with most other tools, but the little slotted piece of metal works great. I keep spools of wire-wrap wire around, as it’s the only thing on rolls that I have found the is small enough for doing emergency PCB trace repairs on fine-pitch components.

I have a separate case full of tiny jewelers screwdrivers if I need to work with tiny hex/square/whatever types of screws, but once again, in terms of versatility and use, a couple of small screwdrivers will work fine. Some of these are actually Craftsman, and I prefer longer-shanked tools (such as those at the top) verse smaller shanked tools (the two transparent handled ones in the middle), as it allows more finger room for maneuvering.

You’ll note also that these aren’t prybars. Fight hard to use your small screwdrivers to pry, dig, scratch, or gouge. Tightening screws with a bent screwdriver is very annoying.

Tools to write with

Pencil, pen, and Sharpie. Absolutely essential.

It should be obvious to have writing tools, but this is a particularly useful set of things to have. The Sharpie will write on anything, including black-shelled connectors. I often use a single Sharpie marker swipe to denote Pin 1 when I am working with prototype connectors. You can also use the Sharpie to mark on otherwise unknown wires to remember where they go when taking things apart. I tend to mark one slash, two slash, etc on connectors on boards that otherwise have no easy way to label.

Also, when pulling wires, a sharpie can be useful to mark bundles. Just write the number of the wire on one end before you pull, and you can do up the more precise and proper labeling methods after the wire is pulled.

The pencil is a normal old-fashioned wooden lead pencil. This has several tasks beyond making pencil marks. Notice that this is a wooden body with a rubber tip. I often use the pencil as a “probulator” to poke around in operating circuits. Pencil erasers are not conductive, and if you are looking for a cold solder joint on a surface mount board, you can exert quite a lot of spongy-force with the eraser on the end of a wooden stick. Don’t go sticking pencils in high voltage enclosures, though, as it’s not a particularly safe thing to do.

The other benefit of a plain-old wooden pencil is that it is conveniently filled with graphite. Graphite can be used to fake resistors if you are really desperate (Ever wonder what’s in a “carbon composite” resistor?) A friend of mine from Australia was using pencils as current limiters in a battery charging circuit, which I found charmingly cool while simultaneously being very dangerous.

We’re not done yet: Graphite is also an excellent (and mildly conductive) dry lubricant. Those of you who did pinewood derby cars are probably familiar with this. You can make rough-feeling locks run smoother by grinding pencil lead into it. Also, if you ever have to take apart and repair a rotary switch or pot, you can just scribble all over the element with pencil lead to keep it limping along. They make actual lubricants to do this, which I also have, but in a pinch, a pencil works well.

Random necessities

Random necessities to have around

In that bag is a small number of random lengths of heat shrink tubing. A roll of electrical tape rolls around in the tool bag, but I keep an assortment of small-size heat shrink for emergency on-site connector repairs. Sometimes you just can not fit electrical tape around what needs to be fixed, so heat shrink is great to have around.

The lighter is primarily there to shrink the heat shrink tubing, but it can also be used to light torches or offer fire to cigarette-smoking co-workers. In the center of the photo is a random length of desolder wick, which I have also used as emergency grounding strap. Next to that is a couple of random tangles of solder. I keep another small roll of solder in the bag with the plug-in emergency iron, but this is in case I forget that bag or need to do something silly.

Tools to scratch, clean, and gouge tiny things

Dental picks and tiny things to scratch and gouge

Dental picks. They come in all kinds of handy. I actually asked my Dentist for these, and he gave me a stern warning about “not using these on my teeth”. Dentists can only re-use dental picks so many times before they become dull.If you are a dentist, I’m sure you can name these all by their particular names. I use these to clean, scrape, and generally gouge small things when needed. Having a sharp dental pick is great if you need to scrape of circuit board traces (where a utility knife is too big), or mark a whole on something that is too deep for a pencil or other marking device.

I also use the picks to clean up messy solder jobs, or scrape away solder mask to make emergency solder pads when doing circuit board emergency reworking. They also come in handy for getting that tiny little screw out of that annoying corner you just dropped it into, as well as holding down ornery fine wires while trying to solder.

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