4 life hacks when working with a soldering iron

An ordinary electric soldering iron has a much wider range of applications than it seems. You can use it to make a plastic cutter or a bag sealer. Let's look at a few ideas for its non-standard use, and a couple of tips for working with it.

How to quickly restore a dead sting

A dirty soldering iron tip can be sanded very quickly by holding it in the chuck of a screwdriver or drill.


When you turn on the rotation, sandpaper is applied to it, and within a minute it will be as good as new.

Soldering iron bag sealer

If you run the hot tip of a soldering iron over a plastic bag, it will burn through it and solder the walls.


This can be used to make sealed packaging by moving the tip under the ruler.

Plastic cutter

The blade from a T-shaped safety razor can be cut with scissors and held in a soldering iron instead of a tip.


It will heat up very quickly and can be used for cutting foam, polystyrene foam, and plastic.

Nail sting

If you need a tip of a special shape, but you don’t want to sharpen the standard one, you can use a nail. It is cut, sharpened if necessary, and then clamped into a soldering iron.


Soldering with them is not as easy as with a copper tip, but it’s also not bad.

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