How would you keep your solder iron clean?

[littlemal]

i tried sanding it, but when i try to solder, the solder on the iron gets all brown, and it almost looks like the solder is eating into the iron. Any ideas?

[Big-O]

Hmm, sounds like you ruined your iron...

[demonofaj]

Yea same here, mine got brown, really brown (meaing it's broken). The brown texture means the iron fused with other materials it shouldn't have. Things like: plastic bags, carpet, paper, more plastic. Contact with those things are bad. But if it's first, just scrape it with a knife, but if you scrape too much to get a lot out, it's dead, so is sanding it...TOOOOO intense. Well, bye, and good luck on your problem.

[Gamelver]

that's wierd .....I usually just scrape stuff of with my wire cutters when I get a dirty tip. all that happens is what looks like copper is exposed....

[Harshboy]

my soldering iron has some carpet fuzz on it, but it works

[joelanders]

I like dremelling it to a nice fine tip. It also cleans a dirty tip.

[daguuy]

mine gets brown sometimes. what i do is turn it on to heat the solder and wipe off the dirty solder on something. when it gets too blunt, it put the bit in a drill and sharpen it against some sandpaper. i don't think that's the best way to make it last long. are there any better kinds of tips that last longer or do they all get blunt fast?

[gannon]

Try licking it

[Lucretius]

While it's on, or the stuff won't be soft!