HO Scale Track

[Jim Banner]

Some people solder just to solder.  They'd solder the cherry onto a banana split if they could.

PF

You mean you can't?

I don't believe I have ever met a militiphile but militiphobes seem to be in abundant supply.  As for soldering the cherry onto a banana split, no problem if you know the trick - copper or silver plate them first.

Soldering is easy enough that even a child can learn the art.  On several occasions, I have had the opportunity to lead elementary school classes through building "Solar Rollers."  These cars required soldering multiple components to printed circuit boards, then wiring them to solar cells and a motor and installing it all in a car body.  With few exceptions, the kids had never soldered anything ever before.  But in the end, all of their cars worked.  I suppose these 10 to 12 year olds had one big advantage over adults - they believed me when I told them I was going to teach them to solder and they believed in themselves that they could learn.

Adults, on the other hand, have often spent a lifetime saying 'I can't do that' and 'I can't learn to do that.'   I don't know why.  I suspect some were told that soldering is very difficult and takes a lot of moxie to learn.  And perhaps others tried soldering once or twice using the wrong iron or the wrong solder or the wrong flux or (the really big one) failed to clean the pieces of metal to be soldered.  Or maybe I have it all bass-akwards.  Maybe those of us who can solder were just too stupid to realize that we couldn't, so we went ahead and did it anyway.  What do you think?

Jim 

[jward]

don't ask me jim. i build my own track. nobody told me i couldn't.......can't imagine building a switch without solder.