How important is soldering technique to you?

[somnif]

I've seen some boutique pedals that just pushed a wire through a pot lug and soldered it. Garbage build in my book, you need to loop it through and also cut off any excess.

See, I've trained myself OUT of that "loop it" mentality. Once its soldered, its electrically sound, and if its a part that isn't going to move, that's all you need. All the looping of a wire accomplishes is making it a hell of a lot harder to de-solder in the future if you ever want to modify/repair it.

These days, for large connections, I just lay the wire on the surface and solder in place. Easy on, easy off, and the electrons don't care either way.

(Of course if its a part that is going to wiggle/wobble/wibble the rules change, or if its going to see a lot of heat, but those situations don't happen much on my bedroom floor)

[mozz]

That's where we differ. I see that as lazy and just waiting to break.  I stopped doing things i see as half assed, whether it's working on cars, my house, money etc. I'm going to retire in 5 years so my train of thought is way different than it was years ago.    If i ever have to rework something or mod it, the loop is trivial with proper desoldering equipment whether it's a sucker, desoldering braid or a Pace desoldering station (which is on my buy list right now). Working on military equipment for a living you get ingrained with failproof connections. You see extra wires in harnesses that aren't connected to anything but are there for possible future upgrades, you see multiple ground wires. You see teflon wire, which is what i mostly use now for everything sonce i came across 2 full boxes at a auction. You have inspectors checking your work, nicked wire from stripping, failure. Too much or too little solder, fail.

I make pedals for a few local guys, that's about it, hopefully they last a long time.

Going to mod stuff or tweak, i have gone to a breadboard. I have seen many older stock pedals (with grand reputations) that were put together by ladies on a assembly line, thrown together but still working, not sloppy but built for ease of assembly. No 90 degree bends that look so nice, no need for that, i'd rather see a 105c cap or 5%.

I like nice heavy pcb traces, not the crap like Fender (no offense) sells today. Built many Heathkits with my paper route money and that was the greatest practice, seeing your skills improve and your product working first time.

As to the electrically sound, no problem, but i see it as it could have been done better for trivial amount of time. If it's a pot, jack, battery connector, ribbon cable, if it can move, it will, and it will fail at some time.