One day I picked up a stray piece of .9mm mechanical pencil lead
thinking it was a short chunk of solder.
I discovered the mistake after a few seconds of wondering why the
darn thing wouldn't melt.
Out of curiosity I did a quick unit conversion, and found that
.9mm is just slightly less than .36" (.3543").
I fed the end of my solder roll through the pencil, and found
that it was a surprisingly comfortable way to hold the solder
while I worked.
I started off doing continuous-feed, but got tired of having
to futz around with the roll.
I thought about putting a roll on the end of the pencil, but
eventually decided that:
- The weight would be a problem.
- It wouldn't get rid of the roll-futzing issues, it would just
move them closer to the pencil.
- It would be more work than I wanted to invest in a
quick-and-dirty tool.
So instead, I cut some chunks of solder about the same length as
the leads.
It worked well enough that I keep half a dozen of the things loaded
up and ready to go.
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