Solder pranking

When I was younger than I am now and much less responsible one of the standard workshop tricks we used to play on each other was to replace someone’s solder with a piece of solid core wire. They look very similar, it’s just that one of them doesn’t melt when you apply it to the soldering iron.

I did this to myself today. I’ve been wiring up some connected little boxes with solid core wire and I started to try and melt it. It took me a while to figure out what I’d done. If I’d done it to anyone else I’d be quite impressed with myself. As it was, all I did was burn my fingers a little bit…