Tools: modified soldering iron

[Little John]

Just wanted to pass this one on, as it's proving to be the most versatile beeking tool I have ...

Can't take credit for the basic idea - that's Dave Cushman's. Take a bog standard Henley Solon soldering iron (great tools in their day, but of little use with modern electronics), and fit a 1N400X diode to one lead in the plug - which reduces the wattage by half.

Then - replace the solid copper tip with a couple of inches of 3/16" copper hydraulic brake pipe, one end of which has been hammered flat into a kind-of knife blade. 3/16" should be an interference fit.

I've used this tool to drip wax, and even weld a cut-out comb back into a new frame, when said comb had resulted from an Alley Method of Q/Rearing which went pear-shaped, when the queenless hive had found a queen from somewhere (not one of mine) and drew comb inside my Rearing Frame rather than pull q/cells.

But perhaps the best display of it's versatility is when securing wax q/cell cups or punched q/cells onto a bar or other platform.
Simply lie the 'knife blade' onto the wax platform for (say) 1 second, to melt a small pool of wax, and then - without moving the blade away - just touch the cell or cell cup onto the upper surface of the blade for a fraction of a second, before withdrawing the blade, and instantly lowering the cell or cell cup into the pool of molten wax. In this way, two molten wax surfaces come together, which almost immediately begin solidifying with the bond between them being as good as it gets - and no need for any further support work.

LJ

 

[Hachi]

LJ got a piccy?

 

[Hombre]

Sad to say that I remember when Henley Solon irons were considered state of the art . . . eek.

 

[Little John]

Sad to say that I remember when Henley Solon irons were considered state of the art . . . eek.

... and AVO meters the size of handbags ! (bl##dy good movements though ...)



Ok Hachi - not sure what you want a pic of, so here's a couple I've just taken:

On those first two, you can just make out where I attached the old (vertical) comb by the slight staining on the sides of the top bar. The bees then carved holes between the attachments (not entirely sure why they did that ?) but there would have been less wax there for them to chomp through.

There wasn't supposed to be queen in that hive, but they found one from somewhere so pulled a comb instead of q/cells !

Couple of shots of the iron - although there's not too much to see there. I'm sure a more modern iron could be modified in a similar way - I just used the Solon as it'll never be used for anything else ...

'best, LJ