On 6/24/05, Donald Chester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Have you tried ordinary paint stripper? I have had various degrees of > success with it. Depends on what kind of varnish they used. I seem to > remember it working well with older wire, such as in repairing pre-WW2 audio > transformers.
Another thing to factor in is time. It may not work in 5-10 minutes, but might over several hours or more. Don't give up if it doesn't yield results immediately. > BTW, one of the things that makes many older transformers open up is the > solder itlelf, that eats up the fine wire, the same process that causes your > soldering gun tip to slowly disintegrate. The process is exacerbated by > humidity. Some of the newer solders are not supposed to do that (don't know > about the lead-free stuff). Ah, yes - the evil acid-core stuff. Leaves a powdery substance in its place. If the connection isn't buried inside of a coil or transformer, it's oten easy to repair. Certainly ran into plenty of those issues with old battery sets and even some of the early A/C stuff. Seems to have been dealt with for the most part by mid/late 30s equipment? Wonder if anyone has a timeline for the elimination of acid-core solder? ~ Todd KA1KAQ
