The old timer at our hangar in Spokane told me to stop soldering before I twist, and it cut my rework on connector pins by half

Adam Baker · 2026-10-25T13:45:05.907227+00:00

I was doing a bunch of D-sub repairs on a King Air panel a few weeks back and kept getting cold joints even though my iron was set right and I was using good 63/37. The senior guy at the shop pulled me aside and said I was trying to flow solder onto an already twisted pair instead of tinning the wire and the pin first, then letting the joint come together. He also told me to stop cranking the heat to compensate and just hold it on a touch longer with a clean tip. I switched to pre-tinning both ends and keeping a wet sponge handy, and my rework dropped from about one in four pins to one in eight the next couple sessions. It sounds dumb that it took a 30 year tech telling me that, but nobody ever walked me through it that way in school. Curious if anybody here has a similar deal with crimpers, like a certain technique you only trust after somebody shows you in person?

Vivisector

Loading…

The old timer at our hangar in Spokane told me to stop soldering before I twist, and it cut my rework on connector pins by half | Avionics Technicians - Vivisector