I have used purchased and home made titanium solder picks, picks made from an old nail or piece of clothes hanger wire, but my favorite is an old stainless steel dental pick that I have had forever. I can’t reliably get solder to jump to any of my other picks the way that it does to the dental pick. When it gets dirty, I just twirl it against a sanding disc and it is good as new. I would appreciate any thoughts on why titanium picks don’t work for me. I clean them, heat them up, don’t heat them up, dip them in flux, don’t dip them in flux, nothing seems to make a difference. Thanks…Rob
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Solder will not stick to titanium under normal atmospheric conditions. Use a titanium pick when you want to move something into place while in the fire and you don’t want solder to stick to the pick.
When heated titanium will immediately form a hard oxide layer which impedes any solder sticking to it. Soldering titanium must be done in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen, a highly technical setup.
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I don’t find the Rio Titanium picks pick up solder. I bought one like this and it is cheap and works perfectly for picking up solder, either paillons or balled up solder https://kingsleynorth.com/titanium-solder-pick-metal.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqxAwJXpPg89Ua7_XiVfpflWTlLlSCjkYxGMW_fsh3QPeg0GEhn8lo
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Elliot…What you are saying makes sense to me now. I use titanium strips to make jigs and tools because they don’t absorb a lot of heat and can be used near a soldered joint. I looked up a listing for titanium solder picks and the description says that solder won’t stick to it. Maybe we should think about using the word pick as it applies to titanium and substitute the word probe for it. Does it make sense that my stainless steel dental pick works? Thanks for the help…Rob
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When soldering platinum my husband Tim uses soldering tweezers that have tungsten carbide replaceable tips. For a solder pick he uses stainless steel. But VERY important info here… He NEVER EVER lets the stainless pick touch hot platinum. To make the solder pallions or platinum chips for fusing he uses his own spit. Yup. Y’all read that right. Spit. And he’s learned to not put hot tweezers or a hot pick on his tongue.
As for general soldering I use a double ended solder pick made with a pin vise. On one end is non stick titanium that I coat with paste flux to pick up pallions. the other end is stainless steel wire coated with paste flux. Paste flux holds up better than liquid flux in very hot situations. The non stick end is for placement of the solder. The stainless end is to catch and drag a wandering pallion that doesn’t want to fill the seam. Some times I flux and coat the stainless tip with the solder when making a chain. It’s especially helpful when the solder jumps to only one side of a jump ring or seam. Both ends of the pick get cleaned and refluxed every day. The trick with placing the solder is to make very sure that the metal to be soldered is always hotter than the solder on the pick. I always keep my pick out of the flame until I can see that the flux has gone liquid and clear before I place the solder. Solder loves things to be hot, clean, and shiny. Kinda like a high maintenance lover.
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Rob - have you tried dipping the titanium pick in flux and heating it to red? That’s the secret to picking up solder with a titanium pick. The lovely thing about it is the that the solder will stick to the hot flux, but transfer readily where you want to place it.
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Here’s a video of the one I use from Pepe Tools: ErgoLast Titanium Solder Pick – Pepetools
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I typically dip my picks in flux, not to pick up the solder chip, but to melt it into the pick. This doesn’t work so well with titanium. I will have to give it a try. Thanks…Rob
I have no problem with solder sticking/fusing onto my titanium pick, the one I mentioned in a previous post to this thread. I add a little paste flux to the tip of the pick (a really little), heat the pick, ball up my solder paillons and touch the pick to a ball of solder. The tip picks up the ball easily, and I heat my piece and apply the ball exactly where I want it to be. Repeat with as many balls of solder and then heat the piece to allow the solder balls to collapse and flow. Works like a charm. It may be that we are both using the word “stick” to mean different things. My meaning is that the solder sticks to the soldering pick tip and is only held there by the heated flux. The Rio picks I mentioned, do not pick up the solder paillons or balls at all. My cheapies work just fine.
When I say “pick”, correctly or not, I am saying that the solder fuses temporarily to the pick. For reasons explained by Elliot, this is not likely to happen with a bare titanium pick. Adding flux to the end may allow a pallion or balled piece of solder to stick to the flux so that it can be transferred to the joint being soldered. I usually place pallions with a pair of tweezers to a joint that has already been fluxed and the flux boiled off. My interest in using a pick is that I am doing some very small pieces and I want to limit how much solder is applied to a joint and/or be more precise in the placement of the solder. My stainless steel pick allows me to do this. There is a lot of subtilty in this discussion and I have found it very helpful. Thanks…Rob
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