"Cold heat" soldering?

For anything approximating real work, you simply need a temp. regulated soldering station. There's inexpensive ones. The tip doesn't get hotter-and-hotter, it regulates reasonably well. They usually come with stands and a place for a sponge. My iron-plated soldering iron tips last years (>> 5 years). Usually until I nick them or, of course, drop them tip first, which they seem to like what with the cord to orient them that way on their downward course. I have of course reflexively grabbed for it and caught the hot barrel. Not for some time. Brown and white smelly cracked and painful skin is pretty good mammilian feedback! You want 50 watts or more. DOn't forget, there's temperature and there's heat ... nothing more annoying than a 750 degree tip that gets cold when you touch the work. It is difficult to do even half-assed quality work with those crap-ass wood-burner things with the screw-in heating elements. The tips suck, always pitted, temperatire all over the place. Jameco sells a tolerable station for under US$50 new. Having a shitty tool says you don't care. You don't need a lot of expensive tools, good dykes, needle-nose, soldering station, good solder, greenie screwdriver, etc and you can get one at a time even if you're relatively poor.