thanks Jason,
yes i had a solder station - unfortunately turned out to be poor quality, and packed up after one
long session desoldering button tacts for a yamaha rm1x >:-( so it was cheap junk after all. might have known
(but only a few hours use ??)
i've been thinking about hot air gun - i'll have to find out what sort, and where to get one where i live (rural), or order.
and have a very nice little angle-poise loupe light found in a bootsale ;-)
(that several people here have tried to get me to dump, as 'junk i'll never use' etc.) (...'people' just don't get it..)