Originally Posted by
Boo
The purpose of the solder is to cause the two sides of the join to adhere to each other - not to 'glue' them together by filling the gap between them. To get a really good strong clean join, the bulk of your work is in preparing the surfaces. You shouldn't be able to see any daylight through them - the physical join should be as tight as it can be before soldering. If I put the piece down and then can't find where the join is, I know I did a reasonably good job. The solder runs between the surfaces of the join by capillary action, it won't flow into an open space between them.
If you prepare the join right, you actually then need very little solder to make a good connection - it should only be a hairs breadth of visible of solder when done. If you use too much, it flows over the outer surface or clumps around the join - which then needs cleaning off.
So it's always better to do the work beforehand preparing your piece with a really clean flush join and using just enough solder, rather than on clean up afterwards.
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