There&#x27;s two techniques that I find work very well for SMD ICs for hand assembled boards:<p>- hot air rework wand. I got mine from China for $100. It works awesome both for removing parts and for melting paste.<p>- flood &amp; wick. You start by tacking down two corners of the chip, and then drag the tip with some solder along the full edge. You&#x27;ll probably get some bridging between pins. Sometimes, when the moon is aligned just right, you just get a perfect solder. For the times when you don&#x27;t, the next step is to take a bit of fresh wick and clean it up.<p>Between these two tools (cheap Chinese reflow wand $100, and a nice Hakko iron $100), I&#x27;ve probably hand-assembled 75-100 prototypes and I don&#x27;t recall ever destroying one. My next trick is going to be trying to do some BGA parts... new experiences!