I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that the tip of the soldering iron would be tinned. Putting a glob of solder on the soldering iron to transfer the heat I suppose is ok but I don't do that as it usually adds too much solder to the finished joint. I let the iron heat up the joint by itself. It takes a bit longer but whose in a hurry? There is more than one way to skin a cat, I guess.
After my first exposure as a teenager to soldering on my Eico Amplifier in about 1955, I have since done better at soldering. The Eico failed to work after assembly. I took it to the local HAM/Audio store and they cleaned up the solder joints and all was well. I have had a bit of practice since then.
Soldering that amazes me is production wave soldering. The circuit board is held close to a the top of a pool of molten solder. A paddle in the automated machine stokes the pool to make a wave of solder that moves down the pool and laps up on the bottom of the circuit board to solder all the component stuck in the copper plated through holes. The whole board is soldered in one pass. All the assembler has to do is cut off the pigtails of the components sticking through the solder joints. NEAT!
LDBennett
