Product Overview
Solder wick, coffee, and paper towels keep SparkFun running. You can steal someone's diagonal cutters for a minute, but you'd better ask before touching their solder wick.
Desoldering braid or desoldering wick is a pre-fluxed copper braid that is used to remove solder, which allows components to be replaced and excess solder (e.g. bridging) to be removed. The soldering iron is applied to the wick as it sits on the solder joint, and when both are brought up to the solder's melting point, the flux is activated and, through capillary action from the braided design, solder is drawn up the wick. Techspray wick has been a mainstay at PCB rework, repair and prototyping stations for over 30-years.
This wick is 1.4mm (0.055") (size #2) wide and 5ft long. As you use it, the bits of wick can't be reused.
Be sure to checkout the SMD Soldering Tutorials to see how to use solder wick.
