Homebrew PCBs

motivated by the Nuts and Volts article I went out and bought a $29 
Black and Decker toaster oven, and then from Digikey some of the 
syringe solder paste ($40, you need the syringe plunger too).

I am using something which appears like a dental pick to apply a 
small dab of the solder paste on the pad, then carefully place the 
device on the pads using a fine tweezer. I find it conventient to 
squeeze a bit of the paste onto the ground plane of the board.

toast for a couple minutes at 450 degrees or so -- something like 2 
to 3 minutes -- the only problem seems to be that if you remove the 
board too quickly the parts can slip around a bit when the solder is 
hot.

if you are careful the process works beautifully.

i've posted this on www.diyaudio.com, so far no takers.

jack