I have been contemplating a pickup swap on a fairly crappy bass for a while, and have been hesitant because I lack soldering skills, which leaves me stuck with pricy EMG’s.
So, I am pondering, how difficult is it to learn to solder? Are there any resources people would recommend? What are the chances of a novice frying a PU or pot their first time?
It’s relatively safe for the pickups, but it’s quite easy to fry a pot, even if you’re not a total beginner. A bad soldering iron doesn’t help.
If you are feeling uncertain about it, you could perhaps do a couple practice runs on some broken equipment, or even order some cheap pots/other components from Amazon and do some trials.
Luckily if you do fry a pot, it’s prob less than $5-10 for a replacement.
Agreed. A poor quality (or low wattage) iron will be more of a hindrance than a help.
I would definitely give it a try!
I recently purchased some new pickups to put into a short scale bass I have, and though I have almost no experience soldering much of anything, it turned out just fine.
There’s a thread with lots of great pointers on TalkBass, and a ton of instructional videos on YouTube. Just take your time and have a good soldering iron (mine was only about $30 bucks or so) and new/correct solder - I was nervous as well, but it turned out great!
Cheers,Kev
Buy an iron with a temperature readout.
Set it to 350C.
But some cheap pots and guitar wire on amazon, poke holes in a piece of cardboard and stick the pots in, and, practice practice practice.
It doesn’t take much to get good.
It is actually a lot of fun after a bit.
I landed on this solder after @Koldunya reco’ed it and it is the easiest to work with I have used, fantastic…
Watch Youtube videos on tinning, cleaning your tip, roughing up back of pots, etc.
I have this one, which is a bit overkill, I took off all the side bits.
Yeah - one thing to point out is that with soldering irons, inexpensive does not necessarily mean bad. I had a $35 Aoyue soldering station from Shenzhen that was fantastic.
The temperature setting is an important tip - a common mistake is to go too hot, and you’ll just burn up the tip and/or destroy components.
It’s easy but there’s some learning curve. Practice try is a must. Most mistakes only happen once, so once you get that through your system you are good to go. It’s so cheap to practice too just wires and pots. Learn how long to solder a point of contact without burning the connection. To me at least, it’s about learning what not to do, lol.
I recently built a Pitbull kit,
It came with pots and wiring and everything needed to be soldered, I had only messed around with a very few solder joints on battery connections and such previously, nothing complicated or pretty.
Certainly not multiple solders onto small and specific areas.
I kind of got it working but ended up using an OEM active circuit in the end.
What it did do was teach me a lot and my soldering has improved to the point that I am now confident soldering inside a wiring cavity-practice helps.
I am now thinking of another kit or getting a junker bass body and wiring in my own electronics (mainly because I like to fiddle).
My original soldering iron was an old cheap one with a larger head, I got a newer (still inexpensive one. The solder I had was quite thick also so I got she thinnest I could find, I also bought a set of soldering tweezers.
This did not cost much.
Oh I am also planning on replacing the pots in an old amp.
Oh, what was said above about using a piece of cardboard as a template is good advice, I did that also- helps to work out wire lengths and such.
Lots and lots of pre-soldered kits out there. Plug and play. They are totally viable.
those are great if you have a front load with a clear channel. not so good if you have a rear control cavity or need to feed the pickup wires through a narrow hole
There’s that, i guess i didn’t really think about space considerations
The kit I built has a rear cavity and needed the wires threaded through a tiny hole.
No real drama.
In the first instance I did it when I installed the pups (2 humbuckers).
2nd time with the new wiring I took the opportunity to copper tape the pickup cavity, I also replaced the 4 screw mounted springs with foam to make installation easier.
No real drama.
I just wired a bass with my Weller battery powered soldering iron and it worked great! What it didn’t work great for was fixing the power cord on my EBike charger; it wasn’t hot enough and the copper PCB was just sucking up all the heat (might have needed new batteries)… so i borrowed a super cheap iron from work and had it fixed quick with no problems.
Too hot is fine if you’re fast, too cold can be worse as the heat just soaks in and melts “things” before it gets hot enough to melt the solder.
Yes definitely! Like if you’re putting heat into something and after a several seconds the solder isn’t melting, stop or you’re going to start melting other stuff you don’t want to melt 
A 3rd/helping hand with magnifier is always handy to have.
Or if you don’t mind burning up tips and know when it is time for a new one
It takes maybe 5-10 mins to solder the electronics for a bass; just don’t leave the iron plugged in for a long time, keep the tip clean and make sure to use the right size/type of solder you can get a decent enough soldering iron for like $15 and even a rework station for about $50… most people aren’t spending hours and hours soldering stuff… a cheap iron should last a lifetime. I misplace them long before they wear out 
Yeah, I have a nice Hakko, it will outlast me.
The temp vs tip wear thing is kind of a function of how fine the tip is. My Hakko has no problem driving tips to be visibly glowing red hot. That’s like 500-600C, or 1000 degrees F. That’s going to oxidize almost any fine tip. 350C - now that’s the sweet spot.
i totally agree with all the above. one of the keys is good solder (kester 60/40).
also buy a bunch of those cheap soldering projects on amazon while you are there.
https://www.amazon.com/soldering-practice-kit/s?k=soldering+practice+kit
(edit: btw this doesn’t matter as it’s just soldering practice. but a bunch of those kits you need to supply your own power supply to make them work which is silly. some of them have a solder on plug for a 9V battery, and some have a usb connection that can just plug in to any usb cable charger. just if you want to actually see if the kit works after you finish it, which is again not necessary but a little helpful as it allows you to double check your work).
i can’t see for shit these days so some cheapo magnifying glasses help if you need them (ie reading glasses, or similar). i have these:
also my hands aren’t too steady. but with all of the above, i still managed to teach myself pretty easily with a couple of youtube videos.
i’m no master solderer by any stretch but i can get the job done. and it’s really handy, you might be surprised how many times you are reaching for your iron to fix or modify something around the house.
I have one of the entry level Hakko pens but have been eyeing the 888 station for a few years. Will prob pull the trigger on it eventually