Homebrew PCBs

Another trick is to spray the board with conformal lacquer before 
soldering. Direct application of a soldering iron will burn through the 
lacquer allowing you to solder but accidentally brushing against a track 
won't. For surface mount components you will have to tin the pads to 
burn off the lacquer before mounting the components.

Les

On 27/09/2012 16:46, Bob Butcher wrote:
> I normally tin all the exposed copper before soldering the components in place, just to prevent corrosion of the bare copper. I do get some solder bridges which are fairly easy to clean up with an exacto knife. I usually lightly sand the board to remove rough edges on the milled areas which helps the solder pull away from the isolation cuts. One way to avoid problems with bridges is to avoid narrow isolation cuts under components during layout of the board. It is fairly easy to fix bridges that are easily seen, but when under components they are very difficult to see or fix.
>
> Bob
>