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In soldering, what is tinning?

Officially, tinning is the process of coating certain metals with a thin sheet of tin to prevent rust, in soldering, however, the term is commonly understood to mean coating a soldering iron's tip, a surface to be soldered or the end of some wires to be joined with a thin application of solder before the actual process of soldering takes place.
There are several reasons for doing this:
- Firstly, creating successful solder joins relies on heating the surfaces to be soldered in the fastest way possible to prevent heat from spreading through a circuit or along a surface causing damage to close by components or parts, because solder is an excellent conductor of heat, tinning the parts separately before joining them allows the heat to concentrate during soldering at the very point where you need it most, therefore, the job is done before heat dissipates throughout the surfaces.
- Secondly, having both surfaces tinned will create a bond between the two components where you would not be able to get solder into if you were to join the subjects first and then apply solder from the outside
- Thirdly, applying solder to the surfaces individually before joining is a lot less fiddly than trying to hold everything together whilst soldering.
Tinning your components and iron first with a thin layer of solder will result in a lot less solder being used to complete the job in the long run, because of this, you will achieve much stronger and neater joins too.
Posted in: Kit building, Best practices

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