Quote from: Les1952 on May 08, 2016, 10:35:43 PM
...A few moments later it had melted the extension lead it was connected to with predictable results.

It wasn't the iron's own cable it landed on.  It had been kicked and come out of its stand, landing across the mains extension lead the iron was plugged into.  Make and model immaterial- if the hot end of a soldering iron rests on an extension lead for long enough it will melt it.....

...In a similar vein you can always tell an experienced chemistry teacher in a lab.  They always pick up tripods by the bottom of one of the legs no matter how long since the Bunsens were nominally turned off....

Les

Yeah, you did say it was the extension cable DUH me!

The mention of the tripod thing is interesting - I had a fill in job a long time ago, in a chemical plant. They used to say there that you could always recognise the batch testers by the fact that they were the one who washed their hands BEFORE going to the toilet.....