Solder bucket terminal

Back in the 20's and 30's, when house wiremen used the knob and tube system, wiring joints were twisted together from a box and the wire was pulled out straight and the end turned down. When all the joints were ready for soldering, the fuel tank and torch was turned on and the solder pot was placed on the upward heating torch and a block of solder was placed in the solder pot, which was a about the size of a tea cup, made of iron with a handle on it about a foot long. When the solder was melted, the wireman would put on a heavy glove and grasp the handle and go around to all the wire joints and dip them in the solder pot. Then, the joints would be taped and put back into their respective boxes in the walls.

Do you possibly mean "solder pots"?

If so, these are most often employed to dip wire leads into to "tin" them with solder. Then sometimes, they're used to dip twisted wire connections into in order to solder them together.

I'm not aware of them being widely used outside of industrial manufacturing situations.

Harry C.

Strip and tin the wire, and then trim so that when pushed into the solder bucket, the insulation is just about level with the top. With the wire inserted into the bucket, heat the bucket with the tip of the soldering iron, and feed enough solder into the top of the bucket to exactly fill it. Hold the joint still and allow it to cool naturally.

If you have any suitably sized neoprene rubber sleeves, slide one up the wire before making the joint, and slide it down over the bucket afterwards. A little sleeve oil will help, and when it dries, it also helps hold the sleeve in place. I have also used PTFE sleeving sized to be a tight fit over the bucket, and slid into place while the bucket is still hot (but not so hot the solder it soft).

Are you looking to tin wires that will be installed into a terminal strip??? I would not recommend this unless you like bad connections or would like to re-tighten them once a year or so!......Please inform and good luck with your project...Ross

I would call that a solder bath.

What I was refering to is the solder terminals on the back of a 7 pin plug. They are small hollow cylanders that I assume you fill with solder.

Normally you would tin the wire and fill the hollow cylinder with solder and then heat up the cylinder and pop the wire in. Then slide a piece of shrink tubing down over the connection....Hope this helps....It is a little hard to figure what exactly you are doing without more info.....Ross

Apologies for not using the correct terminology and causing confusion.

What Andrew and Ross have suggested is exactly the information I was after and is what I have planned on doing anyway.

Sometimes it pays to make sure of these things especially in this application where the connectors will not be accessible for 20 years!!! I am exaggerating a little as the connectors are sacrificial and only need to last a year.