Should I discard my leaded resin core solder

[Roger Feeley]

I don't do much soldering. I have this really old spool of .031" resin core solder and I wonder if I should get rid of it. On one hand, I'm probably breathing lead fumes. But on the other hand, leaded solder works better, right?

[Adam Herman]

Keep it. you are not breathing "lead fumes" unless you are using it. if you are concerned, put it in a plastic bag. it does work better.

[Roger Feeley]

I was talking about the vapors coming off when I solder something. For some reason the smoke always drifts towards me.

[Bill Orbine]

Use a gentle fan next time to blow away from you.

[Wade Lippman]

I take it lead solder is no longer used?! Well, I have a 100 year supply; I'll change when I use it up.

[Jim Koepke]

Same here, I have solder that is older than some of my children and it still works fine for the occasional soldering job.

Besides, if you toss it you should take it to a hazardous waste facility or a recycler.

jtk

[Lee Schierer]

Just don't use it on any water line repairs.

[Mac McQuinn]

If you'd rather get rid of it, most areas have special waste drop-off through the year when you can drop off items like this. Check w/ your local company.
Mac

[Myk Rian]

Keep it. Use a small fan. Don't worry about it.

[Bill Jobe]

Sell it overseas to toy manufacturers.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Lead in solder is actually not a health concern, because it's generally being used by adults, who don't absorb lead as easily as children do. Additionally, the smoke doesn't contain lead, as the soldering temperature is nowhere near high enough to vaporize lead. I don't know the exact number, but I've heard that the average adult would have to eat, like, pounds of lead solder to suffer any serious health effects.

The problem with lead solder is that when the electronics are discarded, they get landfilled and the lead easily leaches into water and contaminates it.

That said, it flows much better than lead-free solders, so most people still use it for prototyping, and most circuit assembly shops maintain "leaded" and "lead-free" soldering lines.

[Wayne Lomman]

Lead IS a health concern to adults. It is a cumulative toxin as your body puts it in your bones displacing calcium and you get weak bones etc. Children are much more readily affected in other ways as well but a major source of their lead is from adults who get contaminated and don't clean up properly before going home or after hobby work. Please read up on this before offering opinions. Look up the OSHA website or lead.org or whatever and you will find out more. Why do you think our governments are spending so much money removing lead from infrastructure? And no, this is not just another opinion, among other experience I am a Responsible Manager of Lead Removal with many such projects and their consequences behind me.Cheers

[Kev Williams]

A little lead with that salad? ;)

353616

[Wayne Lomman]

Do they sell any of this?! Cheers

[Karl Andersson]

You can still buy leaded solder- it is only "outlawed" for use in drinking water supply lines. There are safe ways to use it - if you just keep it around for occasional needs (versus using it for making stained glass windows or high-quantity production) you aren't likely to be exposed to much lead at all. There are some general things to remember when working with lead (including lead painted items you're repairing/ restoring/ stripping):

*Know the right terms; metals make fumes when burnt, which are clouds of tiny respirable droplets of the metal. There is no such thing as gasoline fumes (those are vapors). the distinction is important when shopping for respirators.
*A soldering iron won't make lead fumes unless it's got extreme heat capability; lead produces fumes at 840F (450C) and most soldering is done at a much lower heat. Torches and older (pre-regulation) heat stripping guns will DEFINITELY burn lead and produce fumes if used improperly.
*If you're making dust/ fumes, wear a good-fitting HEPA respirator (can be a cheap, simple N95 in the U.S. if it's a short-term job)
*resin-core soldering with an iron isn't likely to produce lead fumes BUT it does produce potentially hazardous vapors from the resin and it also produces lead oxides and other metal oxides from whatever is mixed in the solder - so as stated use a small fan to blow the vapors away and/ or a respirator and either wear gloves or wash your hands after using it.

For most of us living in "modern" conditions, we are exposed to small amounts of all kinds of toxins on a regular basis. You should control any known exposures you can, because there are plenty you don't know about. These precautions above may seem a bit much for a little bit of solder- I am sure most of us could eat a couple of inches of solder and we'd be just fine- but it does take the body a very long time to shed heavy metals without medical assistance, so an accumulated load from other activities could build up to be a problem. Maybe you can live with a little memory loss, but lead poisoning in adults can also cause... sexual dysfunction.

yeah, sorry - my day job is safety and industrial hygiene (30 years).
solder away,
Karl

[Wade Lippman]

Just don't use it on any water line repairs.

Just curious... My house is 11 years old with copper pipes. What would have been used to solder them?

is there a code requirement on this?

[Lee Schierer]

Probably a non-lead solder. If you don't have acidic water it probably isn't a problem if they used a lead based solder.

If you are really concerned, have your water tested.

[Wade Lippman]

Not concerned; just curious.

[Stan Calow]

Wade, lead solder for drinking water pipes was banned after 1986 and state and local plumbing codes were updated. However, people likely continued to use it for repairs etc., especially homeowners who did their own work. A plumber could lose their license if they used it now.
Way back then just for fun, I soldered some copper pipe joints, and then cut them open in cross-section. Every one of them had big globs of solder on the inside of the joint, which would have been exposed to water. Its the water that sits in the pipe for a long time that picks up lead from the solder, even if not acidic.

[Bill Jobe]

I think toothpaste used to come in a lead tube, didn't it?

[Rich Riddle]

Keep it or give it to someone else who's comfortable utilizing it. My goodness you wouldn't want to put lead into the ground in a landfill. Oh wait, doesn't lead originally come out of the ground?

[Jason Roehl]

Wade, lead solder for drinking water pipes was banned after 1986 and state and local plumbing codes were updated. However, people likely continued to use it for repairs etc., especially homeowners who did their own work. A plumber could lose their license if they used it now.
Way back then just for fun, I soldered some copper pipe joints, and then cut them open in cross-section. Every one of them had big globs of solder on the inside of the joint, which would have been exposed to water. Its the water that sits in the pipe for a long time that picks up lead from the solder, even if not acidic.

This.

If you're concerned about your pipes being soldered with lead, just run the water for a few minutes before you drink it, especially first thing in the morning.

[Dave Stuve]

I do electronics as a hobby, and still use lead solder. I find it more forgiving than the silver/lead free solder. As long as you don't create any dust, the fumes from soldering are easy to deal with. I've got a solder fume absorbing fan, which works great:

354288

This the exact model I have made by Xytronic (there are plenty of others), and it's essentially a metal case with a big personal computer fan which sucks air across your work, through an activated charcoal filter, and blows the cleaned air upwards. The charcoal filters are cheap and don't need to be replaced too often (I take mine out and put it in a Ziplock when not in use.) I put mine on a box to elevate it if I'm soldering something tall.

Amazon sells them for about $45 - just do a search for smoke absorber or fume extractor.

[Tom Stenzel]

I think the key part of the question was:

"I don't do much soldering"

What you might do to protect yourself from lead fumes depends on how much exposure you have. If you solder two wires every other three years a decent amount of ventilation should be enough.

If you're really worried about it I'd tell you to send it to me but I have a pound of it too. It's enough to outlast me.

-Tom

[Dan Friedrichs]

Keep it or give it to someone else who's comfortable utilizing it. My goodness you wouldn't want to put lead into the ground in a landfill. Oh wait, doesn't lead originally come out of the ground?

So does uranium and arsenic.

[Pat Barry]

There is no better solder for electronics than 63/37 tin lead solder - the kind commonly found in spools with a resin flux core. Do not use it for plumbing though, strictly electronics.

[Wade Lippman]

There is no better solder for electronics than 63/37 tin lead solder - the kind commonly found in spools with a resin flux core. Do not use it for plumbing though, strictly electronics.

I won't, but why not?
How about the opposite; using 50/50 tin lead with plumbing flux on electrical wires?

[Tom Stenzel]

I won't, but why not?

Because of the lead getting inside the pipe and leaching into the water.

When I replaced the galvanized lines in my Detroit house I used lead-free solder but there was one copper line from the '60's that had been installed with lead. It ran to the basement toilet. I thought that if someone was drinking water out of it lead was the least of their problems...


How about the opposite; using 50/50 tin lead with plumbing flux on electrical wires?

The flux is corrosive and the 50/50 solder has a higher melting point. When working on circuit boards the higher melting point makes it difficult (I find it about impossible) to avoid damage to the traces. Putting together two 14 gauge wires and the like is doable with 50/50. Make sure you scrub all traces of the flux off when you're done.

A friend of mine worked for Tektronix a few decades ago, he spotted some damage to a 'scope board that looked like it came from acid flux. Sure enough a few weeks later a bulletin came from Beaverton that acid flux had made it's way to an assembly line with a procedure to mitigate the damage. Cleaning up acid flux isn't nearly as easy as just using non-corrosive flux in the first place.

I just looked, my spool of .028" rosin core I bought sometime in the '80s is 62/36/2. The 2% silver makes it flow better. There's probably more than 14 oz. left.

-Tom

[Jim Andrew]

I built my house in 81, so it has lead solder in the pipe joints. Also have a reverse osmosis filter setup for drinking water.

[Roger Feeley]

This is becoming a really interesting discussion. When I was a kid, my parents told me to let the water run for a minute or so before getting water to consume. They said pretty much what you said. That the water that sits in the pipes has time to absorb the lead. Running for a bit flushes that stuff out of there. I have a new house with PEX pipes and I still let the water run. I don't know what's in that plastic but know there's something. The water that's been sitting has a taste.

[Bill Jobe]

The nice thing about pex is that you can start from anywhere and replace pipes using the pex fittings and valves. A 3/4 pex will snap onto a 3/4 copper or 3/4 pex.
It is more expensive, but a real pleasure to use. I have a single pex shutoff valve on every line in my house, all in one room. It's hard to beat.
The idea of Flux getting into, say, the water heater has always concerned me. Not anymore.

[Roger Feeley]

I think I bought a pound of .031" solder 30 years ago and I still have a third of it so I'm not terribly worried. Somebody posted that it's unlikely that there's much lead in the fumes so I'm even less worried.
Still, I might invest in the little fan just to get the smoke out of my eyes which has always bugged me. When I solder, I can't help but think about Murphy's law and campfire smoke that always seems to come towards me.

[Pat Barry]

I think I bought a pound of .031" solder 30 years ago and I still have a third of it so I'm not terribly worried. Somebody posted that it's unlikely that there's much lead in the fumes so I'm even less worried.
Still, I might invest in the little fan just to get the smoke out of my eyes which has always bugged me. When I solder, I can't help but think about Murphy's law and campfire smoke that always seems to come towards me.The melting point of lead is 363 deg F. Tin Lead solder melts at a much lower temperature due to its alloy properties. Lead boils at a much higher temperature (3000 + deg F). I don't think you need to worry about lead fumes during typical soldering processes although if you took a torch to it long enough I suppose that could happen. The more nasty effect is the flux burnoff that happens during soldering - for that it is wise to have a gentle fan blowing to keep from inhaling those fumes. Who knows whats in the flux / flux vapor.