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My first attempt at soldering was to heat up the iron (copper) in a coke fire and try to solder an aluminium pot. Needless to say I had no success. No one told me that you could not solder aluminium. I was 12 at the time.
Next venture into soldering involved sweating brassware to make a power bogey for a train. I managed to borrow an electric iron from a neighbour and was successful. About 14 at that time.
I next made an electric soldering iron (12 volt) after that. A real work of art made from scrap copper, hoop iron, broom handle and wire and mica from an old toaster element, and wound a transformer to drive it.
By this time I was well into making radios so my soldering improved greatly as there was a lot of soldering (un-soldering to salvage parts) necessary with valves in those days. (1950)
Barry
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