get yourself one of these if you want to continue to DIY. it will save you from having to redo any work and remove the stress of soldering in the first place. I used to basically use a hot tenpenny nail as an iron, and saved myself so much stress and selfdoubt by using a similar iron.
also, some good resin, and desoldering braid.
also, get yourself one of those copper scouring pads at the grocery store as a tip cleaner. squirt some of that no-clean resin on it and you have a pretty good soldering station. with some proper practice you can make some professional looking joints within a few hours.
DosDude@retrofed.com 1 week ago
Most ready to solder tin sold has a flux core. Meaning you don’t really need flux, that is, if you do it the way the original commenter did said.
Another thing that can help is a soldering iron that doesn’t take 15 minutes to heat up. If it takes 15 minutes to heat up, there is no way it can transfer enough heat for more than a few pins, as the iron will cool down too much to get a decent joint.