You guys gotta watch this:
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handy
This used to be a weekly show on PBS. I had forgotten all about it. Alway got a kick out of it.
Long before the days of electricity, which made it possible to heat resistance (soldering irons, pencils) or convenient and easily transported fuel gases in cans to power small burners, it was common to use a piece of copper on the handle to transfer heat to metal objects connected by melting another metal (usually an alloy with a much lower melting point, the most common of which are lead and tin) in the seam between them. Heat was obtained from fire made from wood or coal, which was at hand so that the iron could be quickly heated. Now there are different varieties of soldering iron, more details here