I picked up a soldering gun last night for nylon cutting duty. I decided to test it out this morning and am experiencing mixed results. Hopefully, someone can weigh in and tell me if I'm doing something wrong.
Here is the gun I picked up. It came with 3 tips. A partial pull of the trigger gives me 140 watts and a full pull gives me 100 watts.
I decided to try the tip that was already in the gun. I believe it's the std. soldering tip (fat, wedge-shaped end). I wasn't sure how long to let the gun heat up, so I gave the trigger a full pull (low setting) for about 10 seconds. Before I even put tip to fabric, the finish on the entire tip started to bubble as seen in this pic. Is this normal? While the end still resembles a wedge-point, it isn't as sharp as it was before I heated it.
I've probably cut 2-3' of fabric so far. It does provide a nice clean cut when the tip is really hot. I'm afraid to keep it really hot though because the tip finish is failing and I could see that the fitting was bending a bit as I was dragging it along my straight edge. I had to straighten it several times.
Before trying one of the other tips, I thought I'd check to see if I'm doing something wrong. I thought one of these might work, especially if I filed the edge down a little more. Both have flat ends, but neither are sharp. Of course, if the finish is just going to bubble up like the other tip, I'm not sure that would help.
Any tips (no pun intended)? I'm assuming I need to keep the trigger pulled for the entire length of the cut. The instructions say the gun is designed for intermittent use, with a duty cycle of one minute on and four minutes off. I guess for really long cuts, I may need to let it cool down before finishing the cut. Right now, I'm afraid to apply heat for more than 15 seconds for fear that the tip would just melt into a pile of goo.
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