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How do you tin the iron? Every time I apply solder to the tip of the iron, it just beads up and runs away...-Cody F.
If that is happening, your tip is probably dirty. Another MUST... you need to have a clean wet sponge! (Another thing I didn't know when I started solderingas a teenager 100 million years ago). Keep wiping that hot iron on a wet sponge and get it as clean as you can beforeyou try to apply any solder for tinning.You may find, if the tip is all covered with dark, burned junk, that you can only get the solder to stick onone or two spots. Do it. Then wipe on the wet sponge and repeat, until you get rid of all burn junk and get a completelyclean, silver, solder-coated tip.If you've never cleaned the tip and never tinned it, it is probably all dark and cruddy. If it is just a plain copper or copper alloy tip, then carefully sand off that junk with somevery very fine sandpaper (like 220 or even finer... you don't want to be rasping on it with coarse stuff).When you see clean shiney metal, your solder should stick to it. But again, apply a little solder, then wipe it on the sponge. DO NOT USE SANDPAPER if you have an iron-clad, or other "long life" tip. The iron cladding will be sanded off and the tipwill be ruined.Speaking of which.... if you can get the iron clad or "long life" tips for your iron, go to the store right nowand buy one. It makes soldering so much easier. Plain copper tips, the kind that come in most cheap blister-packsoldering irons, get dirty and cruddy fast and are hard to keep clean and tinned.