How to use Sal Ammoniac block for cleaning soldering iron tips?

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Hi,

I’ve seen several recommendations/suggestions here to use a Sal Ammoniac block for cleaning soldering iron tips, so I finally got one, but thus far, haven’t figure out how to use it?

Basically, at this point, shoving the tip into the cleaning thing with the braid/wool type cleaning thing I have seems to work better so far?

The instructions on the box said to melt a drop of solder onto the block then rub the tip onto that, but when I do that, the blob just rolls around.

The tip doesn’t get cleaned at all.

I found a PDF that said to rub some flux onto the block, then tin the tip, and rub the tip on the fluxed area on the block.

That didn’t clean the tip at all either.

So, what’s the trick with using this?

Anyone?

Thanks,
Jim

2

I have not seen Sal Ammoniac used for tinning since my Jr. High school shop class in the 1950s. It was used to clean and tin the big tips on the 100 and 200 watt soldering irons. The tip was shaped with a file and then the bare copper tinned using Sal Ammoniac.

Modern soldering tips, like Weller, are are iron plating on the copper and come pre-tinned. I don’t think that Sal Ammoniac has much use for soldering irons used for electronics.