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From: don@umd5.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.analog
Subject: Re: Rosin flux hard to find?
Message-ID: <822@umd5.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 15:41:44 EST
Article-I.D.: umd5.822
Posted: Wed Dec 18 15:41:44 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Dec-85 05:09:36 EST
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Organization: U of Md, CSC, College Park, Md
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>
> Have other people doing electronic repair or construction work noticed
> that it seems to be difficult to find plain ordinary rosin flux by
> itself these days?
> .
> .
> Having straight flux available makes tinning wires or
> soldering to chassis or sheet metal (like circuit-section shields)
> easier, so I would think that it should be available to hobbyists, but
> it appears to be hard to find. Places like Allied have it in their
> catalogs in quart quantities, but a hobbyist would be better off with a
> squeeze bottle containing 6 oz or so. Anyone know why it doesn't seem to
> be available on the consumer market?
> 
> Will Martin
> 

Generally (the electronics firm I work for included), the flux is purchased
a gallon at a time. True, each person needs no more than a little bit at
any one time, so as many small bottle/dispensers are purchased as required.
Use an old baby-food jar, or similar small wide-mouth jar if you don't wish
to get fancy. Besides, flux keeps just about forever, and it isn't all THAT
expen$ive is it? An "acid" brush works well for applying flux to a large
area. Those cheap single ended wooden "Q-Tips" work well for small areas
when you dip the wooden end into your flux dispenser. To use for tinning
your soldering iron, let the flux solvent evaporate, and put a flux "chip"
on your tip cleaning sponge.
The average consumer will just keep feeding his rosin-core solder onto the
joint until it "wets" -- not pretty, nor MIL-SPEC, but effective.

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