My 45 years old Weller Soldering Iron / Station - Part 2: The Handpiece 

All of the irons where I used to work had the needle point type. I did not know that the number on it represented the temperature. I had replace my iron and used a number 6 needle point tip tip from a drawer that I found at work but there was a sticker on the base station where somebody had written 235 degrees. That must have been for the tip that was on when I bought it. I had to add an Earth cable as the new iron had an Earth lead on it so I re wired the transformer drilled a small hole in the front plate and used epoxy resin to hold a barrier strip connector to the top rhs. It looks good and still works perfectly 34 yrs since I fixed it.

After nearly 40+ years one of my tcps handpieces wont switch anymore. After pulling of the clear cap and cleaning the contacts it is working again. I'm curious wich modern solder station will still work in 40 years from now :) .

"Conical" is the word you were searching for. I hate conical tips, but for some unknown reason they are pretty much the defacto standard supplied with every new soldering iron or soldering station, and if you want chisel tips, you usually end up buying them separately.

Those Weller tips will outlast any current tip from Hakko and the 900M iron station varieties ... they are worth their money when replaced ... glad to see you leave solder (tinned) on the tips after a job, it protects the tips from oxidisation and corrosion ... those Weller irons are a solid bit of kit ... shame you didn't change the cable though ...

You should have replaced the cable. It looked really bad.