Major, Sir,
I think your approach to practice sounds good. There are plenty of good tutorials and videos on-line that can help. An experienced mentor can help. Consider reaching out to your local maker space or ham radio clubs. They can likely point you to someone who can help you on your journey.
As with many pursuits, when it comes to soldering it pays to buy the best equipment that you can afford. A few things to consider, and especially if you are going to be doing repairs...
- You'll be concerning yourself with not only putting the parts on the PCB but getting them off as well.
- Through-Hole vs. Surface-Mount (even 25 y.o. Amigas have SM parts. Don't be afraid to do SM, To be honest with the right tools I often find to be easier than T.H. and Hot Air stations are very reasonably priced.).
- Consider if the station you're buying has a good range of tip sizes available. Having the right sized tip and/or tip shape can make a lot of difference in the end quality of your work.
- Are the tips interchangeable with other brands and can good quality tips be acquired? You don't want to end up with a station that you can't get new tips for 3 years down the road.
Soldering is a skill that can be learned overtime, with practice, with patience and you can likely get to a point of doing pretty good work. However, really excellent soldering capabilities is more like an art in that some people have the knack for it and some do not. The artist will do passable work with a bad soldering station but the average Joe will do bad work with a bad station. So making the investment and having a decent station definitely helps. This doesn't mean you need to buy expensive but rather just good quality. I know a guy who uses a $15 soldering iron with good quality tips and he does amazing work with it.
Check out solder station reviews on places like Dave Jone's Youtube channel and also on his
EEVblog forum.
Hope this helps,
AmigaEd
