I asked this in another forum too and just replied with some recent
good news. It's pasted below.
Stefan, that cleaner sounds like a few of those things I've got here
that come in a little "cake" container. It's a weird glittery silver
color. Problem is, the packaging sucks. It's hard to get to the bulk
of it after you've melted some holes in the top layer. I do have a
nice Weller/Ungar rework rig here with a temp control, and I've got
plated tips for it and for my usual Ungar iron, but I've got a bunch
of coppers for the regular one and it's more portable if I want to
work in front of a TV or something. The iron on the rework thing is
also sort of "small handled" and often heats up at the grip area. Your
grinding while hot idea is probably related to what I did last night.
Someone also recommended purified water in the sponge, so I'll be
using that as well.
Thanks!
George
<pasted>
I think I made some headway with this last night. I may have been
waiting too long between the grinding and soldering stages, and
allowing something to happen to the tip. Someone in the PCB group
grinds his while it's hot.
Last night I ground the tips in the press and smoothed them back up
afterward. I then screwed one onto the iron and carefully wiped the
tip with a paper towel wet with ferric chloride to eat whatever might
be on the surface layer (not sure that's a good idea). I waited a
minute, and twisted some steel wool around it to clean it off. I
immediately smeared flux over it and began heating it up. I started
touching the solder to it before it was hot enough to melt, and as
soon as it would melt, I was able to "paint" the whole tip with
solder. Two of them were cooled down and put away with the solder on
them, and the third, I was able to use the rest of the night, being
careful to keep it clean and coated.
-Take Care