I have seen that there are advanced suckers around, like soldering irons with tubed tip, that both melts the solder and sucks it up. Whenver I struggle with desoldering components, I wish I had one 
I still haven't figured out how you are supposed to operate the bulb part, but then I always wish I had an extra arm or two to work with stuff anyway. Gator clips and other devices only go so far.
And on that whole smt thing, I thought Majista was a magician with that flux it up, apply a crap load of solder, then reheat it all to tap off the excess method.
But I had a friend who works on the Coco3 fpga project solder a Yamaha V9990 VDP to an adapter board so that I could experiment with it, and that is how he did it (the leads are too fine on many smt parts to do it any other way).
BTW - You guys DO realize less and less people do the kind of sh*t we're talking about, don't you?
Solder components to boards when you can buy boards already populated? :laugh1:
Ah heck, we're still having fun a couple of decades or more into this, who are we harming, eh?
Beside, I HAD to build my first computer's, there WEREN'T any common commercially available systems at first.
I wish I'd kept more of those systems.
Who would ever have thought that a SWTPC system or the MP/M system I was given would be worth several thousand?
Makes Amiga 1200 and 4000 model's current going prices look reasonable.
And Jen's new A1200 boards could be a good investment for my retirement.
'Say dude, whatcha take for ALL of those?'
