It's very wise to keep a soldering iron, a roll of solder and desoldering equipment handy at all times.

The second technique involved using braided solder wick and a soldering iron with a blade tip to remove residual solder from the PCB pad.

So far, soldering iron tips have been made mainly of copper, and in order to prevent oxidization, the copper has been either iron-plated or chromlum-plated.