would like to hear from people who their own boards

[ncudahy]

Everything I've made on a nicey-nice factory board has been an instant success. When I make my own boards not so much 

Right now I use Pulsar products which I think are much better and faster than the press and peel route. I use a fine grade steel wool and acetone on the board before running it trhough a laminator with the pulsar paper. then i use liquid tin. I usually do a continuity test on the traces before soldering. sometimes though the solder just doesn't seem to want to take, unlike with a factory board which seems to want to suck the solder onto the joint.

Wondering if other people have had this experience and what tricks they have learned to overcome this problem. I've made enough stuff now that it's rare for me to make any mistakes with component values or placement and feel like my soldering technique is pretty ok, but i'm still having to do a lot of debugging and have to chalk it up to the quality of the boards i'm making.

If this topic has been talked to death, feel free to point me to the right links. But this forum is also supposed to be an opportunity to interact with other peopl right??

Thanks
Nick