I use a cheap soldering iron that uses 900M style tips. Out of the tips it came with, I preferred the bevel style the best. But of course as I was just learning then how to solder nicely, I ruined the tip. As the plating was already completely gone anyway (evidenced by very rapid erosion), I  filed the tip down (I know, I know). Turns out the core was just plain copper inside. So unsurprisingly it kept dissolving away over time, and I kept filing it down. I just threw it out when it got too short.

Then I made my own solid copper bevel tip with a piece of 1/4" copper tubing and some 4 AWG solid copper wire that I turned down with a file in my drill and press fit into the tubing. Knowing that it was going to erode away (I use lead-free which makes it worse), I made it pretty long. That tip was absolutely excellent, lots of thermal mass and heated things really fast, and held lots of solder. Used it for everything. Wide bevel tips are definitely what I like. Well now it's getting a little too stubby after many many "resurfacings" (filing + sanding), and so I just made another one but didn't use it yet. Of course I could just buy a proper 900M 5mm bevel tip, but that's no fun.

I have seen some Youtube videos of people making copper soldering iron tips and then plating them in nickel to make them not erode away. I know that usually tips are plated with iron for this reason, but will nickel work sufficiently for this purpose? I have nickel plated various things before and I can do it again, but I don't wanna do it if it isn't actually gonna work. I haven't seen any long term results from the people who nickel plate their tips.

I also made a tip out of steel, which took a few tries to tin properly (using special acid flux) but it obviously ended up being horrible. Just not thermally conductive enough. Maybe usable for soldering very small wires, and for that it would have a very long life, but just unusable for anything larger.

Does anyone know a lot about soldering who can answer this? Should I nickel plate my copper tips, or just keep filing them away as they inevitably erode? I know lead-free solder is more aggressive, does this affect the decision?

Thanks!

Do you use the wet sponge to clean the iron after using?

Give it a try and compare what works for you



Your question reminds me of an iron i used to have as a kid and teenager, bought in the early 00s

Was just a plug in iron (not themally controlled), the size of 40W/60W irons but only 25W power, made in Taiwan, branded "GOLD" (i dont think that was the real name of the manufacturer)

It was slow to warm up (due to its size and low power), but had excellent heat retention - Once it was hot, it would solder everything - even huge thick Copper wires

Its tip coating was really bad - The corner went missing the moment i wiped it on the damp sponge in the iron stand for the 1st time, and it started eroding ever since

Over all of its life the tip had a concave (cup) shape, but for my back-then uses - which maxed at through hole breadboard stuff & recapping Pentium 4 mainboards - it did the job just fine, i never even filed the tip, i got a master at using it as is

I lost it at some point in the 2010's before its tip ended completely. I would absolutely keep replacing its tips and using it for stuff like wires

Today i use an entirely different grade soldering workstation, and it does things that old iron could never do, but making DIY tips for it is not an option. So can't say anything about DIY tips

@rjluna2
No, I only use brass wool. I hear differing opinions on which one is best, I just don't want to keep something wet so I use brass wool. No strong preference.

@Ash
My first iron was the opposite, it got way way way too hot, putting solder on the tip yielded smoke for ~1s before it all burned off and the solder started oxidizing. I had to throttle the temperature by plugging it in and unplugging it periodically (had no power switch) before I got my variac which I then used for that purpose. I still have it because it uses the old long 3/16" straight shank tips that have tons of thermal mass so I can use it for larger things.

I guess I could just try it out and see if it works...

Soldering iron tip should combine the best possible thermal transfer with certain resistance to dissolving in molten solder. Industry settled on copper core with thick iron coating as a compromise. Many years ago I used soldering tips with bare copper, I can say they had slightly better heat transfer than modern 2-layer ones, BUT lasted only a few hours before re-grinding was required even with low working temperatures used in the past.

Human life time is limited, so there are definitely better things to do instead of DIY-ing something as mundane as soldering tips Hunt down a good soldering station. JBC clones seems to be in vogue today) personally I am a bit conservative and prefer induction soldering stations. Metcal even modern Chinese built is very good, also induction cartridges with thermal feedback via thermocouple like Chinese brand Quick 202/303 are very nice too.

There is no reason to use lead free solder for personal work, as you are not bound by ecological regulations. Standard 63Sn 37Pb alloy works just better, and lead toxicity is non-issue, as it does not evaporate significantly at soldering temperatures (and even somewhat higher).
 
 

Yep. My station today is an old 2nd hand Metcal. It beats the Hakko 951 i had in my previous workplace, which in itself is a very nice iron too

@Multisubject
And that was not my 1st iron. My first was the cheapest 25W iron (of standard 25W size) of the late 90s. Something from China with a black bakelite handle, no ground, no company name, and an anonymous gold QC PASS label

It lasted for a while and its tip didnt erode, but one day while i was soldering it just died with a bang and white flash from the rifle holes around the heating element's external tube

I got a 2nd identical one. It lasted for a while too. One day i came to solder something, put the iron on the component, touched the solder wire to the point, and got slapped with full 230V through the solder wire, hand, body and foot

Then i got the one described above, that had ground and lasted for many years despite the bad tip

@RRK
Really? I would assume that the thin plating of a tip wouldn't make the thermal conductivity that much worse but I guess not.

Why is a whole soldering station necessary? I never really got that, and I feel like the induction function will only get in my way when I am trying to solder a bunch of stuff. How long do those take to warm back up?

As to lead vs lead-free I do appreciate your advice. I know that the lead won't evaporate, but handling lead very often when alternatives are available just makes me feel a little weird if ya know what I mean, even if realistically it isn't ever a problem. I don't really care that if you wash your hands you are supposedly okay, I just don't feel like taking that risk if it is unnecessary. I learned soldering with lead-free, never knew any different, maybe it works worse than leaded but I haven't had any problems since I got the hang of it. A completely individualized decision, everybody has their preferred methods. Maybe in 10 years I will try leaded and then regret that I haven't listened to you, who knows.

@Ash
Oof, that is scary. My new iron is grounded, but my old one isn't. Maybe not such a great thing... Might break out my isolation transformer next time I have to use it lol 

Isolation transformer will improve your safety, but may by itself still have enough capacitive coupling to have enough leakage current, to damage sensitive components

For example if you touch it to the gate of a MOSFET while its other terminals are connected to more circuitry that you touch (completing it to ground) etc

So keep it for LEDs and resistors, but don't do modern electronics with it

On the subject of ungrounded irons, i have a more recent story (~10 years ago)

I had a friend here - old guy, their family were friends with my parents, and somehow me and him figured that we can have some fun at the garage. (had - because he had poor health and passed away since)

He was not an electronics guy by any means, but had general handyman hobby (welding grinding), and besides, he liked to buy all sorts of dodgy stuff from Ebay and Aliexpress for gags and entertainment, so i came for the gags and entertainment part

One of the things he got fascinated with was LED lights and gadgets of all kinds. Being from Aliexpress they would blow up all the time

Then we would break out the soldering iron (also from Aliexpress) to hack it to work again (smash the LED that died and solder blob over it, replace capacitor with one out of another blown gadget, etc) and see if it lasts for a while more or smoke comes out again

When holding the board with LEDs (taken out of whatever light or gadget) and touching the iron to them, LEDs would light up - Quite brightly, and quite long stretches of LEDs in series - showing that the voltage is high (typically 1/2 the line voltage, so in our case about 115AC to ground)

The current was small, probably on the order of 0.1mA, which you normally can't feel. However, it clearly can break down to full short to live anytime without any advance warning

So i did just sit in lotus position in a plastic chair and use the iron anyway...

Iron layer should be of a certain thickness because it still somewhat dissolves in the solder and also oxidizes in the air. And it wears by contact with objects soldered. As soon you have a hole in iron cladding, soldering tip is quickly dead just in a few working hours.

The reason of having a soldering station is to have tip temperature tightly regulated with high spare power available, which is a requirement for any serious soldering job. Well, some modern irons have a controller in the handle, so can be considered soldering stations in one piece.

You may say whatever you want about 'personal choice' but the truth is 37/63 lead solder is just technically better and that's why it is still exempted for special equipment like military, aviation or telecom.

Reasons:

Lead solder is eutectic. Most of lead free solders are not. Eutectic solder melts or freezes at one single temperature, non-eutectic over a range, being a mix of multiple liquid and solid phases. That gives it some unsightly smoked appearance, and sometimes compromise mechanical strength.

Lead solder wets copper significantly better than lead-free one.

Lead-free solder is significantly more prone to crack at thermal cycling

Lead free solder is prone to grow tin whiskers. Lead solder does not have this problem at all. This is very significant.

Good quality lead-free solder, close to eutectic, requires an addition of a large amount of silver (circa 4%) making it *significantly* more expensive!

Still, eutectic lead solder melts at 183C and most of lead-free ones melt at around 220C. This is some 40C higher. Higher stress on the components, faster flux burn-of, faster tip oxidizing.

@Ash
Yea the only thing I use the old iron for is large (larger than 14AWG) wires, never for anything small and sensitive.

I should really test out my old iron to see how isolated the tip really is, this is scaring me! And I work on a concrete basement floor (usually with no shoes, though I know that isn't good) so I am probably fairly solidly grounded from an electrocution perspective, which is obviously not super great.

@RRK
The iron layer dissolves in the solder? Isn't that not supposed to happen, like the point of plating it in the first place? Or is some dissolution necessary for wetting?

So temperature control is the main thing here, that is good. Mine has an adjustable temperature readout controller thingy in the handle, not sure how accurate it is but it definitely does adjust the temperature to some satisfactory degree.

Let's agree to disagree about solder I guess, you do what works for you, I do what works for me. Not sure how to phrase this nicely, and I don't feel like whipping out ChatGPT to do it for me so I really hope you don't take this the wrong way: What solder I choose to use really doesn't affect you in the slightest, so I don't know why you care so much. Not worth continuing this conversation. No hard feelings.
 

How much leakage it has right now is not that important. What's important is whether it can change anytime with no advance warning, generally the answer is yes, it can. That's where the transformer will provide your safety

(as long as it is intact - which is worth testing, but unlike a soldering iron, an isolation transformer has huge safety margins in its isolation materials, and they are not stressed by high temperatures)

When you use equipment like a standard user uses home appliances (not covers off and sticking hands in), as long as your equipment is in good condition and reliably grounded (including the ground wiring throughout the house being intact), its perfectly safe as is and does not require any additional isolation between you and ground

Isolation by transformer provides the same level of safety as ground or higher. Electrical codes do define some dangerous situations (typically in the context of industrial settings, the cases where you are with a line powered tool in a confined metal duct ect) where grounding is not considered good enough, but isolation by transformer is - for a reason

I am always barefoot as well, except when actually dealing with electricity or with the electrical installation



Workstations have also a relation to this :

A grounded iron is safe to use, but not ESD-safe in all cases (to prevent damage to components) :

 - The source of the static charge may be present in the circuit, and discharge to the iron. The damage will be exactly the same as if the source was in the iron and discharge to the circuit

 - The most sensitive components nowadays may have abs max ratings in the order of single volts or less. If the circuit is grounded from one source (you and te floor below) and the iron from another source (line ground) the voltage difference between them alone may be sufficient to damage something

So to improve its ESD safety, an iron is better be electrically isolated, than low-resistance grounded. Then it is still grounded through some high value resistance (typ 1MOhm), to prevent slow static charge build up if a static source is present

Then for electrical safety, the iron is powered by extra low voltage (<50V), and the transformer is contained inside the station box

Not all workstation irons are like that, and some can be reconfigured between different grounding settings. The low end ones and those where the controller is in the handle are often powered directly by line voltage and must be low resistance grounded

@Ash
Thanks for all that info! Yeah I don't think a mains transformer is crammed into the handle of my iron, and I think I have tested it's continuity to ground before and concluded that it is directly connected. I haven't worked with those extra low voltage sensitive components before, but if I do I will definitely be careful and do research.

I wonder if it would be possible for manufacturers to integrate a GFCI-like device into the iron to be able to omit the transformer and still have high impedance grounding. Maybe that would be more expensive than just having a transformer, who knows.

For serious work, industry rules call for hard grounding everything involved. Hard grounding operator person is dangerous, so some current limiting resistor of circa 1 megohm is added.

In addition to mandatory grounding, GFCI may or may be not in use, not for actual components protection, but for stopping insulation deterioration problems *earlier* before they grow to full blown short circuits.  Downside is as always some nuisance tripping happens due to interference.

 

High impedance grounding is is not possible because it still allows to some voltage spikes to leak through heater - tip capacitance. Modern general purpose components like microcontroller ports or 74HC logic are in practice quite impressively robust to abuse by mains leak currents and static electricity, but you'll get some components killed randomly with careless work, like small SOT23 MOSFETs having low gate capacitance.

 

The iron layer dissolves in the solder? Isn't that not supposed to happen, like the point of plating it in the first place? Or is some dissolution necessary for wetting?

Sure. Some of soldering tip material is lost continuously. Iron plating just slows this down considerably, that's the point. Still, tips are considered spare parts having a limited life.

Interestingly, today most of lead-free solders have circa 0.5% of copper added. Having this may slow bare copper tip dissolution in the solder, but no one in their sane mind uses bare copper tips in 2026 so it is hard to verify...