Three ways to bond metal to metal above 200 degrees, each exploiting identical physics through completely different mechanics. Hand soldering fine-pitch parts looks like wizardry, but every method here is just controlled surface tension, flux chemistry, and heat transfer working in your favour. Pin by pin The slow, deliberate approach. A fine conical or chisel tip delivers heat to one pad at a time while you feed in solder. The pad and lead climb past the alloy’s melting point (183C for eutectic Sn63Pb37, ~217C for lead-free SAC305) and molten solder wets both surfaces. Ideal for through-hole, connectors, and tacking a chip before committing. Total control, no mercy for cold joints. Spoon (drag) soldering A concave tip carries a small reservoir of molten solder dragged along an entire row of leads in one pass. Flux and capillary action do the work: solder flows onto clean wetted pads while surface tension pulls excess back into the spoon, leaving no bridges. Brutally fast on SOIC an...