starfishfood.com

If you’re looking for a good holiday gift for a tinkerer you can hardly give away anything more inventive than the Cold Heat soldering iron. The idea is this: instead of running electric current through the tip of the iron to heat it up, the Cold Heat iron runs the current between the two prongs of its split tip, and thus through the solder. It’s not the first Cold Solder — there are butane-powered versions, but these cost twice as much as the $20 Cold Heat, take longer to cool and require butane cartridges.Now you’re thinking “Hmm … I wonder if the Cold Heat works like a cattle prod too?”