American Beauty Tweezer handpiece

[Mike Madonna]

Good evening all,

Looking for input/recommendations regarding the above. I am considering either the #10541 Light Tweezer Style handpiece or
the #105133 Micro Tweezer Style handpiece. The #10541 "Light" has 5/64" Steel Electrodes and the "Micro" has .04" Ni-Chrome Electrodes.
Working primarily with N scale (obviously) and will be doing turnout construction and other track work. I may try on a brass etched kit or two
as well.
Appreciate and all replies
Thanks!

[u18b]

I use both.
Watched ebay a very long time to find the extra one I needed at a reasonable price.

[mark.hinds]

I have all 3 of their handsets, but haven't used them for brass rolling stock since the 90s (when I switched to ready-to-run plastic from Atlas, Kato, etc.).  IIRC, I mostly used the smallest tweezers for modifying my Hallmark Samhongsa locomotives.  If you keep the electrodes clean, they should produce more than enough heat for kits.  BTW, be sure to buy spare electrodes for whichever handset(s) you acquire.

EDIT:  After reading Bob's comment below, I wanted to mention that they are very useful for general layout soldering, such as track feeders, turnout jumpers, etc.  They give you instantaneous heat, without the hassle of maintaining a hot soldering iron. 

MH

[robert3985]

I use the "Light" American Beauty tweezer handpiece, and have never felt a need for the smaller "Micro" handpiece and I work in N-scale through O-scale.

I also use my American Beauty 250W Soldering Station to fabricate turnouts, track feeders, build etched brass models and to work on and modify various brass models in various scales, but mostly N-scale for myself.

If you're contemplating purchasing a new resistance soldering station, I would also get the "Ultra-Light" probe with the 3/32" Carbon Electrodes.  I use the probe, which I sharpen with a grinder, for many of my brass model building projects where the Tweezer handpiece would be difficult or impossible to use such as soldering .006" grab irons on to the surface of my brass caboose projects with 96/4 Tin/Silver silver bearing solder instead of drilling a hole in the body to mount them, and doing the same process on cast-brass steam and sand domes on various brass steam locomotives that now have separate grab irons there instead of their funky stock cast-on ones.

An additional tool that I wish I hadn't waited so long to get is Micro-Mark's Grounding Vice which adds a third hand and grounds my model simultaneously allowing for much more precise placement of small parts without having to find a place on my delicate model to clamp my grounding cable to.  Find that here:  https://www.micromark.com/Grounding-Vise-For-Resistance-Soldering-Unit

American Beauty also makes a Grounding Table, but it's nearly 3 times the price, but offers their "tapered pins" connectors rather than ring terminals.

As usual, for metal models and track fabrication, I highly recommend the best soldering flux made for model-building and track fabrication...Superior No. 30 Supersafe Soldering Flux (gel) and solid-core 96/4 Tin/Silver silver-bearing solder available here: https://www.hnflux.com/

Have fun!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore