Amazon has the keester 63/37 for about $23-25 shipped usually for one pound there are other 63/37 brands
I prefer lead solder, but have used the cheap $2 Walmart voltage pro and 3m solder. Slightly higher melting point but flows fine with a good iron. I use a 40 watt Weller iron with 3mm tip and can use lead free with no problem. But prefer the lead. I use what I have at the time. Thin diameter is better if you need thicker you just bend and double it up
I don't have any problems finding lead solder. Every hardware store I walk in has it.
I do agree it is not healthy. I have a massive ventilation system and, if it something I have to have my face right over when I solder it I wear a respirator...
All the big box stores by me only have lead free, Walmart, Lowes, fastenal. I’ve had to order it.
Generally, lead-free solder is just plain tin (Sn). Problems with that are that it grows “tin whiskers” over time, and well, it crumbles into powder at –40° (“tin pest”).
Stick with Pb/Sn if you can get it, either 63/37 or 60/40.
No, it also contains silver and copper if it’s even remotely decent quality, you might want to do a bit more research.
Me? Nah. I’m good with what I got. 
And if you pick up a spool of Mystery Metal when buying solder offa fleabay or ali or wherever, you won’t be quite sure of what you’re getting. (Who’s gonna assay it?)
The 1lb spools I got now will last me a looooong time…
No, I use 3% silver, lung-cancer free (aka lead free lol). I don’t cheap out on aliexpress or sites like that.
Sn62pb36Ag2 0.5mm rosin flux core
63-37 is the “time tested and honored blend” for a reason… thats the “eutectic”
at 63-37, there is a critical temperature… above or at that temperature, it is molten. Below that temperature? it is immediately solid.
at any other mixture, than the eutectic? there will be a “middle period” where it is not solid and not liquid. it has to cool down thru this region, to reach completely set up and solid hard.
any movement during this “weird middle period” can and will compromise your solder joint.
thats why 63-37 is and will always be, so popular. NEW soldering beginners? would do very well to experience “real solder”. when your iron is set just right? its liquid and as soon as you pull out… BAM, solid and firm as anything.
the rosin core is a wonderful addition, helps it coat and stick and work right, without it sitting in a puddle riding in a ball not fully adhered right.
i’m not a particularly “good” solderer… which is funny for a former electronics hobbyist, lol… my solder joints were no thing of beauty, believe me. BUT, i started out in the old days, with “real” solder commonly available… when i came back to it? (flashlight and NV hobbies…) i founf i had more trouble than ever… took me a while to figure out it was the “new” crap solder everyone is always pushing.
lead free my dimpled white irish @$$… unless you are soldering for a LIVING, 8 hours a day, or more days a week? a few whiffs of solder fumes will not kill you. if you dont EAT the solder? it wont harm you. this is JUST like casting bullets, and oh my god, theres solid LEAD in commercial ammunition!!!
old time farmers? spent every winter by the fireplace, casting pure lead bullets and lead sinkers and jigs for fishing… they were 90 years old, still working the back 40, healthier and stronger than all the city sissies with all their “healthy advice”.
lead is not uranium… everyone acts as if “lead” is deadly to all living things… its hogwash. do you KNOW where lead COMES from?? i will tell you… down south in the “USA”? they have vast areas of “lead bearing soil”. to get lead for bullet making? you simply make a big fire, and shovel the DIRT all around you over the fire… the next day? you dig thru the ashes, and pull out the big blob of raw lead. which you “flux” and clean the dross out of and pour into ingots.
if the LEAD was so HARMFUL to the envirenment, and the birdies, and the fishies, and every living crteature like they make it out to be? why, pray tell… is there grasses, and trees, and birds and fish and every other creature and plant known to MAN thriving there? hm? the soil is LEAD BEARING… its naturally “contaminated”… and it doesnt hurt a thing.
its a load of crap. now, if you deal with bullet casting and soldering daily for 8 hours a day? for a living? yes, then you take precautions… mainly dont EAT IT, and dont smoke while working with it…
Well I don’t ever deal with any ammunition or any other lead-containing devices.
I live in canada, not in the US where everyone is shooting eachother 24/7 
this isnt the right “forum” for a progun, anti-gun debate… if you like living somewhere where your government doesnt trust you to eat what you want, and do what you want, and be a free citizen instead of a “subject”? thats your deal, its fine by me…
but, “lead”? and other supposdly “unhealthy” things?
hmmm…. lets see. what are some of those “bad things” for you? bacon has FAT, its just HORRIBLE for you… as is all “pork”. Red meat? another “practically a poison” food. Starch and carbs? oh good lord, you have to eliminate that too. Even EGGS are supposedly bad for you, and if you do have some? best to limit them to “one or two eggs a week”, and best to remove that yolk, it has cholesterol. shiver
salt is bad for you too, right? another poison to be eliminated.
now, lets look at some of the HEALTHIEST people ever… those that grew up living on a real working farm. Strong, healthy men that give a lifetime of “real work”, and even into their 80s?? are still fully capable of working a 12 hour day.
what is their diet consist of?
well…. breakfast, starts off with as much eggs (with poison cholesterol laden yolks, lol) and bacon, as you WANT. heap your PLATE with it! a big giant slice of HAM goes with it. Carb laden potatoes? hash browns and sliced potatoes, cooked in OIL, oil is i forgot another “poison”. you can salt your whole plate, no one will correct you on it.
this is “breakfast”.
lunch? these people have freezers full of RED MEAT and PORK. lunch could be a cheeseburger shiver or even a bacon sandwich with “real cheese”.
breakfast and lunch… all poison. deadly to live on… you havent even gotten to dinner time…. big chunks of real RED MEAT, as much as you want. large dishes of potatoes, all those carbs. salt and coffee (real coffee, not that decaffeinated crap) available in limitless quantities, morning noon and nite at every meal.
if all the “experts” agree that all this stuff is bad for you? how do these people LIVE ON IT, every day of their lives… and are healthy and strong their whole lives too? hm? and with GUNS all through every house, too. Little children? have their own rifles from a young age. But, they grew up shooting guns and taught to handle them PROPERLY.
i can tell you… a secret? (you are being lied to)
real, 100%, all-the-fat-in-it MILK? is good for you, its all they drink! when milk gets “homogenized? commercially? they squeeze the milk theu a tiny orifice, which breaks apart the giant fat molecules… helps the milk ”keep” longer for commercial purposes… BUT? it allows the FAT to get into your bloodstream.
REAL milk is good for you, and all the fat? goes thru you and out the other end… plus? your getting “innoculated” with all sorts of natural things in your environment… things like pollen and the like. your body builds immunity off of it.
air conditioning? removes all the pollen and everything else you need top breathe daily so you have a healthy immune system.
you are being LIED to? and you believe it…
Sn62Pb36Ag2 is also eutetic
But is has some benefits over 63/37
Common in electronics. The strongest tin-lead solder. Appearance identical to Sn60Pb40 or Sn63Pb37. Crystals of Ag3Sn may be seen growing from the solder. Extended heat treatment leads to formation of crystals of binary alloys. Silver content decreases solubility of silver, making the alloy suitable for soldering silver-metallized surfaces, e.g. SMD capacitors and other silver-metallized ceramics.[7][28][32] Not recommended for gold.[21] General-purpose.
There are tens of solder compounds that are eutetic
the “view” everyone outside the USA, that never LIVED here? its vastly skewed… now, i will state firmly? the big cities?? are for the most part complete cesspools of crime and violence and drugs and every other form of criminal and perversion imaginable….
places like chicago, detroit, new york and LA if you are not “rich”… horrible dangerous places to live. you ar emore likely to get killed by violent crime living in chicago, than performing a “tour” in combat in Afghanistan. Literally more dangerous to live in chicago than to be in a WAR.
set outside the big cities? is a whole country of “normal people”. Heck, i live in a poor area… its a “bad place” to live, really…. legions of crackheads and criminals and welfare bums… and we stilldont have 1/10th the “problems” of the big cities.
all the “politically correct”, “nanny state” crap? that all starts in “Kalifornia” (spelling intentional) and spreads out from there, largely thru the big city liberals, and the “political elite” push it for the concentrated “city votes”.
you cant view “crime problems in downtown chicago” and apply it to the REST of “normal” america. If you choose to believe all the “hippie proaganda” you get force fed on the boob tube? well…. that is your choice. free will and god bless.
but seriously… if LEAD is so harmful? Why is every living thing… THRIVING in a section of the country that has LEAD BEARING SOIL? Hm?
honestly, its food for thought.
yes, there are lots of different eutectics… but…
63-37, low temperature eutectic solder? was the “gold standard” for forever, for a reason, most likely.
honestly? i always meant to TRY some silver mixed in with the standard solder? just never did… i have heard that the silver “flows” and “coats” unimaginably well… is this your experience? I know some bullet-casters USED to use it, before silver went sky high in price…
they all said it “flowed” and made casting a LOT easier of a process.
Wellp, lemme just add that those who beat their swords into plowshares quite often end up doing all the plowing for those who didn’t.
+1.
My gramma lived to over 100, bless her heart, never took vitamins, was climbing ladders to wash her windows into her 90s, ate all natural, including staples as milk, eggs, ham, bacon, and other natural foods, including “poisonous” cured meats. Never saw a teevee dinner or the like in her fridge, though.
Wonder why people today have the same reaction like vampyres to garlic, whenever anything has gluten, peanuts, etc.
When I was a kid, no one even knew wotnahell gluten even was, let alone got IBS from it or anything. And we lived on pb&j.
PS to lightbringer…
ha ha, i now know what your signature “bytes” mean… hee hee.
i meant to tell you, 2 thumbs up…
And it took care of those pesky werewolves…
Kewl. Just doing my part…
I love the unintended consequences that result, like the Streisand Effect.
The tighter you squeeze, the more that slips right through your fingers.
All of the reports I can find are in PDF so can't post them here but, just do a search for dangers of soldering and you will find both are very unhealthy.
Seems odd that the hard push for lead free and turns out silver is just as bad. Flux which you have to use in one form or another is maybe worse than either solder.
Just have to decide for yourself and be safe...
i once got a long “lecture” about the many health problems of soldering? (a thing i do now and again, not like its a living or anything) from a guy chain smoking…
i always kinda scratched my head at that one…
honestly? if you dont solder for a LIVING? i honestly wouldnt worry about it… seriously, people go to extremes about this stuff… they act as if the simple act of touching a LEAD SINKER fishing for a few seconds? is going to make you grow a third eye or something…
you want to live life on the edge? drink a pot of coffee, chain smoke a half a pack of smokes, while huffing solder fumes in a decidedly unventilated area of your home? and embrace your mortality, LMAO
because? the whole time you are studiously afraid to touch lead, much less huff solder fumes???
the WATER COMPANY, in its main lines?? has metal main water pipes that are made out of A LEAD ALLOY… ha cha cha… and most so called “bottled water”?? in reality comes from a TAP somewhere…
read your yearly “water quality report” that comes in the mail once a year… its hysterical whats in your water…