Now see, brilliant stuff like that is what this thread was made for!
In #59, bottom photo, is that a fan?
TKall:
In #59, bottom photo, is that a fan?
Yes 12v, for blowing or sucking the flux fumes away from the immediate area. 
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Before he was a Colonel, Mr. Bill Kilgore said, "I love the smell of solder flux in the morning." True story.
With a little imagination and some activated charcoal you could come up with an adequate air filter.
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LarryD:
I made one of these a while back.
Works quite well.Edit
You can add more weight at the end with a neodymium magnet.
This is something I've been wanting to make. I had plans for making it a part of a jig that holds the pcb, but I was unsure if the small point would try to penetrate the smd when heat was applied. I was planning on using a spring loaded adjustable arm with an aluminum tip.
I've had problems in the past with some of the small ic's shifting just enough to cause problems, which I will admit I bring on myself by using leadless chips, but I rather like them in the end product.
On Mine, I used a stainless steel bolt for the weight and the pivot bearing.
Used the section that has no threads.
The part on the table was made 1 inch long.
For the rod, I used a .064 .08 inch stainless steel welding rod cut to length and sharpened on the business end.
Edit:
Never had problems with the point going into a component.
If you put a set screw in the weight you could easily adjust its position on the rod.
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Karma point to the first person who knows what this is:
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Springs for a reverb/echo effects box. Little on the short side.
I like the resistor/LED method also, end of with sturdy legs to plug into breadboards.
CrossRoads:
Springs for a reverb/echo effects box. Little on the short side.
Now you cannot be that old.
This is a 'Pull Spring Vise tool'
I made my first version of this back in my teens. Only a couple of years ago.
This is a more pretty version of the same tool I came up with back then.
Here is a PDF discussion of the construction and use of this pull spring vise tool:
Attached is the PDF file with all the instruction images.
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Pull Spring Vice Version 2.pdf (962 KB)
Oh yeah. Bought a Kustom guitar amp back in like 1981, took out the reverb spring box and made an op-amp buffer for it instead so I could use it separately from the amp.
I've only done a project or two, back in 1981, using point to point soldering with ethernet type wiring to regular PCB sockets epoxied down on perfboard when I was a co-op student (like an intern) in college. Then the lab lead showed me wirewrap, and I've never done point to point soldering since unless it was a dirt-simple project, and even then I hated doing it. Any one-off projects now are wirewrapped, and the pins cut short if the board needs to be lower height.
To add a series resistor to a LED, consider this using this method.
That is a pretty good idea.
When hand soldering very small SMD devices, it is a must to use small diameter solder, ~0.3 mm.
Using this small sized solder becomes difficult for large fingers.
A sewing bobbin in an old dental floss container solves handling problems.
BTW, these bobbins make great pulleys in your motor projects.
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If you have a head magnifier, consider adding one of these high intensity lamps to the visor.
Adding one of these makes things much easier to inspect.
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Plated through hole (PTH) components are still used in projects.
Diodes, transistors, resistors and DIP I.C.s leads are inserted through drilled holes in the PCB and then soldered.
When the PCB is component side up all is good, when the board is turned over for soldering, the components falls away from the PCB.
Usually the leads of these components are bent prior to turning the board upside down so they don’t fall out.
The jig described below removes the need for bending leads.
A compression board, with foam attached, is placed on top of the PCB with the components.
Clips are added to this assembly to slightly compress the foam which in turn presses all the components firmly against the PCB.
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