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I want to get into some soldering projects.  I was recommended at least a 30-40 watts tool to buy, but........   Does any one know if the "Cold-Heat" product on T.V. is better?
THX

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Cold heat is a waste of money. I bought it to throw into a tool kit but I could never get solder to flow with that POS.

I use a Weller 8200 140w/100w gun that I've had for at least 15-20 years. You can get flow on some pretty heavy connections and you can do fine work too if you are careful not to overheat your work. BTW, I was soldering some microphone cables last night!

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Will y'all say what KINDs/Brands of guns you get?  And for what reasons?

We don't own a soldering iron, and we need one––actually we need one RIGHT NOW just to solder the new motor into uxb's cordless drill.  But I went to Lowes and Home Depot and saw these "soldering kits" for about $10-20 and they looked kind of lame so we haven't bought one.  Maybe they're NOT lame.  I just don't know.

I figure there are all kinds––useless to excellent.

We tend to buy good tools, contractor grade, and buy them ONCE––ones that will cover as many applications as possible.

For instance, uxb needs to solder the motor into his drill.  I might need to solder a clasp back onto a silver necklace.  Does one iron accomplish all the tasks?  Maybe we don't need a fancy soldering iron, but if I'm gonna pay twenty bucks for a lame one, or thirty five for a really good one, I'll go for the thirty five immediately.   If it's $135 for a good one, I'll think twice about that.  Cuz I dunno how much we'll use it.                                                                                                                                                                                                              

I can actually WELD, but I've never owned a soldering iron/gun.

It's actually a little weird, all the house stuff we've done/tools we own, and neither of us has ever owned a  simple  tool to solder.  

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Soldering has its own set of 'tricks.'

Simple adding power to allow a smaller tip (low thermal mass) to heat a joint is not an effective way to make reliable joints.

The actual size and weight of the heated mass plays a large part in being able to raise the joint up to soldering temperature without cooking everything.

The available power only determine how fast the tip will come back up to soldering temperature after a joint is made.

My large soldering iron is still only 50 W, but has a chunk of 1 in diameter copper about 3 inches long in the heating element.

Once it gets to soldering temperature it just stays there, even when working on 16 oz copper sheets.

For fine electronic work the soldering stations use pulse width control to maintain the tip temperature (they have a thermal sensor built into the iron).

The essentially add extra power only when the tip starts to cool.
Many are actually very low power (15 W) for fine work.

While you can use solder to repair jewelry, real repairs are normally done by brazing with the melting point of the filler metal above 800-840 F but still not melting the base metal.

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Okay, we will probably do little to no electronic work.  It will be stuff like the drill motor or other around-the-house stuff––fixing the prong on the plug for my old waterbed heater, for instance.

It sounds as though we would need one NOT for electronics, and it sounds as though I need something different to fix/make jewelry (the jewelry I will be doing is all silver, not plated usually.).  I figured I could just melt the clasp together with a spool of silver solder, but maybe not.....I have a lot to learn about soldering.  The tricks, as you say.

Is there a place to go for this stuff––to learn about it?

And are the Wellers available in-store locally, or is this a specialty product?

thanks for the input.

Kitties