Some men like to wait around for things to happen. involves joining two or more metals.

The difference
Carl E. Weller was not one of these men. Hailing between soldering and welding is that in welding,
from Easton, PA as a radio repairman, Carl Weller you melt the two base metals being joined together,
had to use a soldering iron as a part of his everyday while in soldering, you only melt the solder which
routine, but he felt that the soldering iron did not joins the metals. Welding is generally done at much
heat up fast enough. In 1941, using his knowledge higher temperatures than soldering. Soldering is
of electronics, he created a new way to heat up the mostly used when dealing with electronics or wires,
tip of the soldering iron, by inventing the soldering when plumbers put together copper pipes, or for
gun. auto repair.
Popular Science Magazine
The soldering gun was such an important             Like many men in
invention, that it led Hubert Luckett of Popular his trade as radio repair man,
Science magazine to say that “the instant-heat Weller was generally off put
soldering gun is one of the rarities- a hand tool that by the fact that he would need
was truly a new and needed invention.” to leave the soldering iron in
            A soldering gun is used much in the same his workshop on all day,
way that a soldering iron is used, mainly to solder since it took too long to heat
things together. Soldering is a process where two or up. This also was a major
A Weapon of Technology: The
more metals are joined together by melting a solderSoldering
problemGun when he was on
on them. Solder is usually tin or lead based so that it house calls doing a job that
melts at a lower temperature than the two metals required soldering. Too much
joining together. A soldering iron is a tool that heats time was wasted on waiting for his
up when electrical current runs through it. It looks a iron to heat up. Carl Weller Carl Weller
lot like a screwdriver, but when the tip is hot, the managed to succeed where his
heat can be transferred to metals by touching them predecessors failed, however, by developing a quick
together.  Welding is similar to soldering because it heating soldering tool, the soldering gun. A
 colleague of his, Al Kittinger, said "[Weller] was an             The soldering gun is not a tool without its
American pioneer. No job was too small for him; flaws. The major flaw of the soldering gun is that a
there was nothing he couldn't transformer works
solve." Weller was almost through creating
destined to make the varying magnetic
soldering gun. fields. As the voltage
The key features of change increases, so
the soldering gun, that makes does the intensity of
it stand out from the the magnetic field.
soldering iron, are its uses of Since there is a large
a transformer, direct heating voltage decrease in
with electrical current, and a the soldering gun, it
trigger. Being a lifelong releases a magnetic
Pennsylvania man, Carl field large enough to
Weller loved guns, which is disrupt or destroy
why decided to include a magnetic sensitive
trigger and shape his device material, such as a
like a gun. Part of the reason
Carl Weller hard drive.
Internal view of the soldering gun
the soldering iron took so long to             Because he saw great
heat up was that the wires in a as drawn in the original patent potential in his new product, Carl
soldering iron needed to heat up first, before the Weller tried to sell his idea to large manufacturing
energy could even reached the tip of the iron. This companies, but they shunned his idea considering it
resulted in wasted energy and wasted time. impractical. Weller, not giving up easily, then built
The addition of the transformer is what 274 soldering guns by hand in his basement, using
allows the soldering gun to heat up much faster than up all of his resources. Carl sold the guns to other
a normal soldering iron. A transformer is a device radio repair shops. In 1945, Thanks to great
that allows alternating current feedback from his peers, Weller started a
(AC) voltage in a circuit to Wikimedia Commons manufacturing company, not so cleverly named
increase or decrease. The Weller
Voltage and current have Manufacturing Company,
an inverse relationship, if to produce more. This
voltage increases current company was an
decreases, or vice versa. overnight success, and it
The transformer that Carl eventually became a
Weller features in his multi-million dollar
soldering gun rapidly business after branching
drops the voltage, which out into the sales of other
creates a sharp rise in the tools along with the
current going through the soldering gun. In 1970,
circuit. When current Weller Manufacturing Co.
moves through was sold to Cooper Tools.
something with resistive Cooper Tools has decided
properties, the thing that is The transformer works when electricity to keep the brand name and
resistive heats up, so when a enters on the left side, and comes out on make it a subsidiary, since the
lot of current goes through it, the right side with different currents and
it heats up really fast. voltages that remain inversely
proportional.
Weller name has always been associated with high
quality tools.
            After some years, Weller improved on his
soldering gun by making it lighter weight and using
easily interchangeable tips to allow for multiple
temperature levels to be used for whatever soldering
challenges that may be run into. The tips are a key
factor in the design of the soldering gun, since the
tip generally takes up a much smaller area than the
rest of the circuit. The smaller the cross sectional
area of a metal, the higher resistance it has. This is
very important, since it allows most of the heat
energy to go to the tip and not the rest of the tool.
            Recently, soldering irons have matched the
soldering gun in terms of how fast they heat up.
However, the soldering iron is still disadvantaged to
the soldering gun when power consumption is a
major factor in the soldering process for a certain
task. The fact that the soldering gun so easily turns
on and off due to its trigger system, will make sure
that this tool won't be replaced any time soon. The
only way it could be replaced in this regard is if a
smart soldering tool is invented that somehow
knows exactly when it should turn on and off, but
that sounds a little too unnecessary and complex to
develop for most common applications.
             The soldering game was changed
completely by the invention of the soldering gun. It
created a more competitive market and more
importantly it allowed the users, the people who
solder, to have a wider range of tools to complete a
wide variety of tasks. And all the thanks is due to a
small time radio repairman from Easton, PA.