Seventy-five years ago, the gentleman shown here wanted one of the new soldering guns, but didn’t want to pay the high prices they were then commanding. So he did what anyone would have done, namely, make his own. He started with a power transformer, and removed the secondary windings by cutting them with a hacksaw, leaving the primary winding in place. He then added a new secondary winding of Number 4 stranded wire, with enough turns to provide a voltage of 1/2 volt. Since the voltage was stepped down by a factor of 240, the secondary current was stepped up by the same amount, which was short circuited through a 12 gauge copper wire, which served as the heating element. The author reported that in 10 seconds, the tip was ready to be tinned.

Fortunately, today, the costs are low enough that it’s not necessary to make your own tool. As you can see below, equivalent soldering guns are quite reasonably priced. And for those of us who prefer an old-school iron, the cost can be even lower.

The plans appeared in Radio Craft, August 1947.

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