How To Make "AMAZING" SOLDER BRAID / Great Soldering Hack 

I've used the braid from waste coaxial cable as solder wick for years.

One of the great things about making your own is the insulation on the wire allows you to hold it steady and move it with agility without getting burned- something the spool doesn't really allow. 👍

Looks like its even working better than normal store bought wick.

Thank you! Now I can mass produce a nice little tub full made from the mountain of off cuts I have . Thanks again Mr solder fix!

Coax stripped with braided copper removed pulled tight and dipped liquid flux is another trick. Interesting see how others work around. 👌✌️👍🇬🇧

What, I can just make it ? Lol I love your videos, I learn something useful every time. No more buying solder braid for me .

Perfect idea. Simple and works. There are always some spare waste cables at home.

Wow! Very interesting and informative video's. Always soldered. Was not good at it, have improved enormously after watching your videos. Done things I would not normally do. Thanks for the time and the great content.

I can’t thank you enough

you made me love soldering

Nice! Little tips to help make a job much simpler. Thank you for posting these. Great detail and camera work as well. Very easy to understand.

Great tip.

This is a brilliant idea, great video. Thanks for the share.

Amazing tip! Thanks you

You have done it again. Brilliant

Great tip, good flux really is important though

I knew you could do it, great job. Thank you very much indeed.

Another great tip. Thanks.

👍 Bangin', nice idea for the larger solder too, never thought of that.

Old power cables work lovely.

Cheers!

Very nice! I was just wining about only having some cheap junk wick on hand. You put me back in business! TY

Great pro tips here. This is a favorite channel and I'm sure I will learn something

Lovely Video!!! Thank you!!!🙂

Excellent - thanks!

You are really a genius

Thanks 👍

I agree - WOW!

Amazing stuff. 💐💐💐💐💐

Genius idea ☺

Very nice!

Lol, took me ages but I had an entire 5 metre cable I made into a big braid

Brilliant, thank you and you have a new subscriber too.

Nice!

Well done

Very good trick

Thanks for this TIP :D It is very usefully ;)

If I had known this earlier there'd be one more working Logitech G400 in this world

Very nice tip. Why didn't I think of that? Subbed.

Nice. I have some really high strand 16 gauge wire that would be excellent at this.

It’s the flux!

nice teacher

Wow.. cool. Can you do a video on reballing ic

thakn you

Nice

this is reall good thanks alot saved me some money again thanks

Thanks so much Mr SolderFix for this tip! This is going to help me quite a bit when I solder up some gold plated banana plugs. I have to do a double tinning on them and I don't have any wick .I'm so glad I found your site with all the info. If you have any additional tips on soldering gold plated audio connectors I'd love to hear it. Thanks so much my friend!

Try silicone "noodle" wire it has much finer standing than conventional hookup wire (which is why it's so flexible). It's widely used in electric R/C to hook up the batteries, ESC and motor. The extra fine wire strands make it very susceptible to wicking which is why some people will crimp bootlace ferrules onto the ends and then solder the ferrule (solder can't wick through the crimp or at least it takes a long time). But this also makes it extremely good solder wick.

thanks for the vid! Is it necessary to dip the braid in flux?

Can you use stranded tinned copper wire, or does the surface need to be the copper metal itself?

how hot is your soldering iron? your tips are always amazing!

I'm a cable guy and always have old power cords from modems and cable boxes. The company doesn't want them back, and the warehouse just chucks it all in the garbage 😖

Hello, what type of microscope do you use? Manufacturer, magnification,...

have you tried the braided screen oout of coaxial screened cables? add flux and it should work like shop bought stuff ??

But what do you still prefer? "Original" or "home made"?

hi there mate, may i ask you what is the size or gauge of the earth wire you're using there in your video? just curious 🤔

You often talk about putting flux on the braid but what flux product are you using?

Would you consider using a solder sucker for such things as that big hole?

I'm guessing it doesn't have to be green/yellow earth wire? Will any stranded copper wire do the same job, or is solder a bit picky about the colour of the insulation?🤷

@Mr solderfix, would you be able to do a short video on what tools you use and what brands of solder, flux etc?

I'm American but I was confused when you said "earth wire" as if you needed some specific special type of wire. It seems like you can use any old piece of copper wire in this method right? great tip :)

Since when did "Steve Davis" do soldering demos?

What about separating all the wire strands in a lamp cord and actually braiding them together? Like hair… Or make a crochet desolder towel soaked in flux. My girlfriend likes to crochet, ill see if she wants to crochet me some desolder blankeys.😊 On the real though, I think buying desolder braided wick is a complete waste of money when anyone who solders stuff semi-frequently most likely has scrap copper lamp cord to their disposal and it works just as well. Also, if you’re good at thinking ahead, you can pretty much tin wires just by desoldering at the same time. You save money on solder and the cord you are running is pretty much your desolder wick. I’m a cheap skate though and nothing prevents me from picking up a face down penny off the ground, so…. Yeah. 😊 On a separate note, I heard you can use Vaseline as flux. Does this mean you can use other similar stuff like bag balm, carmex, chapstick, etc? What makes Vaseline work like flux?

are you using a liquid flux

Where do you get your SMFL200D flux from now - is it really discontinued?

Hey how are you

Hey Mr. Solderfix. Can I send you a free Pinecil V2 soldering iron?