A free, thirteen-lesson course on how to solder.
Soldering looks like a talent. It is not. It is a skill with a short set of rules, and almost everyone who thinks they are bad at it was simply never told the rules. Twenty minutes of understanding, then some time with an iron in your hand, is genuinely all it takes.
What usually happens is that someone copies what they saw once, picks up a habit that guarantees bad joints, and concludes they have shaky hands. They do not. They were given the wrong instruction.
This course fixes that. Thirteen short lessons, in order, from what is physically happening in a joint through to fixing the mess when it goes wrong. It is free, there is no sign-up, and no lesson is held back.
Who this is for
You have never soldered, or you have soldered and quietly suspected you were doing it wrong. Either is fine. Nothing here assumes you know any electronics, and nothing here talks down to you either.
You do not need to own anything yet. Lessons 1 to 5 are worth reading before you buy a single tool, and they will save you money.
The thirteen lessons
Understand it first
1. What soldering actually is It is not glue and it is not welding. What is physically happening in a joint, and the one habit that causes most beginner failures.
Get equipped
2. Choosing your soldering iron What actually matters in an iron and what does not. Temperature control, power, tips, and why the thing you plug it into decides how hot it can get.
3. Solder and flux, explained Leaded versus lead-free, told straight. What flux is, why it is already inside your solder, and why it matters more than the solder does.
4. The rest of the kit: what you need, and what can wait Stands, third hands, magnification, mats, cutters, brass wool. Grouped by when you will actually want them, because you need almost none of it to start.
5. Safety, ventilation and setting up your bench The real risks, in proportion. No scaremongering, no shrugging.
Do it
6. Tinning and tip care The five-second habit that decides whether your iron works well or badly, and how people destroy a tip in two weeks without noticing.
7. Reading the board, and working in the right order Silkscreen, pads, polarity, the assembly order that stops parts falling out while you work, and why some pads drink heat far faster than others.
8. Your first joint, step by step The actual technique, one beat at a time, with the timings.
Check it and fix it
9. Good joint, bad joint, and checking your work A visual gallery of every common fault, what causes each one, and how to check a board before you power it up.
10. Fixing mistakes: desoldering and rework Braid, pumps, bridges and lifted pads. Nothing you do is permanent.
Go further
11. Beyond the board: wires, heat shrink and connectors Joining wire to wire is a different job with different rules.
12. A quick look at surface mount What those tiny parts are, why we did not start you there, and what it takes to work on them.
13. What to build next Where to practice, and what makes a good first real project.
How to use this course
If you are starting from nothing: read 1 to 5 before you buy anything. Then read 6 and 7 with your iron in front of you.
If you already have an iron and a kit in a box: read Lesson 1, then jump to 6, 7 and 8 and get going. Come back for the rest. Do not skip 7, even if you are impatient. It is the one that explains why some joints on your board will refuse to take when everything you are doing is correct.
If your joints keep failing: go straight to Lesson 9, good joint bad joint, find your fault in the gallery, then read whichever lesson it points you back to.
A word about who wrote this
We are amomii. We make electronics kits that people learn to solder on, so we have a commercial interest in more people taking up soldering. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
What we are not going to do is write a thirteen-lesson advert. Where we recommend a product, including our own, we say plainly that it is ours and we explain the actual reasoning, so you can disagree with it. Most of this course does not mention products at all, because most of soldering has nothing to do with what you bought.
The test we hold ourselves to: every lesson should be useful to someone who is never going to buy anything from us.
Frequently asked questions
Is Soldering Fundamentals really free? Yes. Every lesson is on this site, in full, with no sign-up.
How long does it take to learn to solder? You can make a sound joint within an hour of first picking up an iron, if someone tells you the right things first. Getting it consistent takes a weekend of practice. It is much less of a mountain than it looks.
Do I need to know electronics first? No. Soldering is a hand skill and a materials skill. It is entirely separate from understanding circuits, and plenty of people learn it first.
What do I need to buy to start? A temperature-controlled iron, solder, a stand, a way to clean the tip, and something to practice on. Lesson 2 covers the iron, and Lesson 4 covers everything else, including what you can safely skip at first.
Is soldering dangerous? It involves something at around 350 °C and a metal you should not eat, so it deserves respect rather than fear. Lesson 5 covers the actual risks and the simple precautions that handle them.
Can children learn to solder? Yes, with supervision, and typically from around eleven or twelve upwards depending on the child. The considerations are in Lesson 5.
