Perhaps my two cents worth of inexperience may help a student...

  When I got out of the service in '65, my first job was with Western
Union in Boston. They assigned me to a bench to modify some old
(EVERYTHING in WU was old, furniture from 20's and 30's, ancient tube
equipment, etc.) tube device I forget the function of. I had almost no
soldering experience. They had these huge American Beauty soldering
irons with hot dog size barrels and pencil size tips. The wiring ranged
from 22 to 10 gauge stranded and conditions were VERY jammed and crowded
in the box. I had placed my iron in it's tip cradle and was looking in
the box and trying to hold a 10 gauge piece, with a mind of it's own, in
a very tight spot. Now the American Beauties were very old and had the
ancient heavy cloth covered cord plugged into a strip on the back of the
bench. The cord had slipped the iron back a little. While looking in the
box I reached for the iron and grabbed the barrel full grip, all fingers
and palm firmly wrapped. You didn't hold these irons like a pencil, you
held them like a baseball bat.

  The Beatles have a song titled "A Minute is a Very Long Time". It's
very clever and lasts exactly one minute.

 Let me talk to the students for a couple of hours explaining EXACTLY
how long 3/4 of a second reaction time is...

 I was lucky. There was lots of white skin and some very bad, almost
crippling blisters, but no third degree. For an hour or two after,
everyone passing through the shop wanted to know what that weird smell
was.

  Hope this helps someone, sigh...

Chris Cox

Chris Carr wrote:
>
> > > University rarely teaches you the practical side and it shows.
> > >
> > Apart from not knowing one end of a test-tube from the
> > other,
>
> Or which end of a Soldering Iron to get hold of. I kid you not.
> I spent days fighting off the Heath & Safety Gestapo because a
> 3rd year student burnt his hand grabbing the hot end of a Soldering Iron.
>
> Yes he had designed, built and tested circuits - using a computer. That last
> bit of information I failed to acquire before the incident, He had never
> actually built a circuit using real components, but he had seen it done
> once.
>
> The University where this student came from received a forthright diatribe
> expressing my opinions regarding their teaching methods. They did include
> some practical after that, then we devised a circuit specification for
> students to design and build which we knew worked perfectly on the computer
> but would never work on the breadboard without tweaking.
>
> For some reason the supply of students gaining industrial experience seemed
> to dry up after 2 years.
>
> Chris Carr
>
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