Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

I didn't figure this would belong in the recent tinning threads-

I don't care for the "look" I've gotten on my past tinning attempts
and it tended to muddy up my nice neat traces and left thick/thin
spots. I realize appearance shouldn't be a priority here, but I do
like the shine that the nice new copper lines initially have, and the
look they have under a thin clear coat.

The most specific posts I saw on this mentioned a thin coat of clear
spray lacquer. There wasn't anyone arguing against it for any reason
and the guy only stated that it would put off a nasty stink while you
soldered though it, which some may not care for.

Does this sound acceptable, and if so, is there a preferred "over the
counter" spray? I'm not much of a perfectionist at my circuit building
level right now, and the stuff I've been doing probably wouldn't be
drastically affected by a less-than-perfect electrical resistance in
most areas. I'd mainly like to preserve the pretty gold. :)

-Take Care
George

FWIW- My tinning was mostly by wiping a gel-type flux, melting solder
at different points, and then just scraping it around with the face of
a custom ground fat copper tip, and sometimes a tip riding on a piece
of solder braid to smooth the lumps.