Someone stated:
¡ "it's very important IMO that you use a *top* quality solder such as Kester even when unsoldering a joint. The Kester 2% silver loaded solder is hard to find and is now stupidly expensive but it's by far the best solder that I've ever used and I HOARD every bit of it that I can find and I use it very sparingly. I won't waste my time trying to use lead free solder. FOR ANYTHING!"
I agree, I have used many resin cored solders (60/40, 63/37, 2% Ag, 4% Ag, Alpha brand, Kester brand, No-name, etc.) over the past 50+ years, and in terms of rosin smell (some I just could not stand!) and ease of use, I prefer the 4% Ag from Kester.
Around 15 years +/- ago, I bought as much of the 4% silver solder as I could afford, the .015" diameter Kester 4% silver, leaded solder, mostly, in my opinion, the finest that I ever used. It truly makes beautiful joints, using any soldering iron (for over twenty years I used a ¡°tip" oriented temperature controlled Weller WP-60-3) until I bought several of the stand alone Weller and JBC station/iron units. I happen to sell an occasional item on eBay, almost 20% of the time, its the: 12¡¯, 25¡¯, 50¡¯, 100¡¯, and 200¡¯ lengths of that .015 diameter, 4% silver, leaded Kester Solder.
Sorry for the self-aggrandizing mention, but that solder is still available, and some 2% Ag also (until I get down to my last roll).
Steven ( stevenel57 on eBay )
