Homebrew PCBs

A friend who's worked in the industry for a long time told me he'd 
hired an immigrant asian woman to assemble SMT boards for him, based 
on her reputation for speed. He said she used a small paintbrush to 
put solder paste on each pad, then a bamboo stick (like those 
potsticker skewers from the grocery store) with a bit of beeswax on 
the end of it to pick up and hold the parts in place. Then a touch 
with a small soldering iron.

Steve Greenfield