I gave up trying to keep plastic from sticking to the tool, instead I just wipe it on whatever junk mail I’ve received recently. Mine is set to about 220°C and I don’t have to clean it super frequently unless I’m adding gobs of plastic for a deeper weld. I should also mention I use a soldering station which I’ve found has more accuracy than any plastic welders I’ve tried. Downside to this is that the plastic kinda ruins the coating on the tip for actual soldering, but I get around this by just swapping to another tip.

One of my teachers read Where the Red Fern Grows to my class at the pace of a chapter or two every couple days (spare time in the lesson plan). I was impatient, so I got my mom to drive me to the public library, checked it out and finished the book that night. Had to wait almost 2 whole weeks before the class got caught up. I also didn’t want to spoil the ending for my classmates, so I just had to kinda hold onto the knowledge of the events and deal with it by myself while all the other kids were oblivious. Out teacher had us start watching the movie towards the end of the book, she had it timed perfectly so that the class (other than me) had no ideas for the back to back double whammy of loss that they were about to experience.

Cuba lima monster energy. So many good memories of getting out of school and going to my buddy’s house, we would just hang and drink so many of these. Granted it was no doubt terrible for our health and was a bunch of money we probably could have used for better things, they remind me of a simpler and better time.