Beginner Dos and Dont's

[smallbearelec]

I have a suggestion, Steve: Don't use a tiny enclosure for a first build. My first build was a Green Ringer, and I insisted on etching a PCB and stuffing it into a 1590G. That was a real pain.

Good one, thanks! Will find a place for it.

[defaced]

^guilty of that one.  That's how I clean my iron alot of times.  Not really the safest thing to do. 

   Every flick can have an equal and opposite back-flick

I'm guessing you're like me and only (if at all) have a set of magnifiers as eye protection, mouth slightly open...

Oh, I'm well aware of that - one of the reasons why my iron holder is at the back of my bench.  The other is that I get burnt enough in my day job (welding engineer) that I prefer to not do it at home.  Keeping it out of arms immediate reach helps with that. 

Big +1 on cotton clothes (jeans, shirt) and closed toe shoes.  I've come dangerously close to embedding plastic into my leg because I was wearing synthetic pants in the electronics lab when I was in high school (I should have know better - half of my clothes looks like they had been pecked by bird shot because of welding sparks).