[Elecraft] Tips on safely Soldering X7 - X11 Grounding wires on K2 RF Board

[Mike Lewis]

Hi,

I am a first time K2 builer, and just joined the list. I am greatly 
enjoying my kitbuilding experience so far, but I have a little 
trepidation in performing the crystal grounding steps for the 5 crystals 
that are grounded on the sides of the case. I do have a temp controlled 
iron, and have been running it at 700 degrees so far. I used a small 
amount of liquid solder flux (only a small drop) on the tops of the 
crystal cans for the previous crystals I have grounded, and the results 
seemed to be pretty good, and did not require me to leave the iron on 
the crystal case for an appreciable amount of time. I had also soldered 
the ground wires in before the crytals in these earlier steps - that 
seemed to make life easier. I guess I am a bit more jumpy on these last 
crystals because:

1) Extra warnings in manual about excessive heat

2) added complexity of soldering to both sides of crystal

3) More awkward access, due to mount point on edge, and potential 
interference from R pack SIPs on one side of crystals

4) Extra difficulty in getting ground wires to lay close to the case

So I was wondering at what techniques people had found for this that had 
produced good results. Does it possibly make sense to try somehow to 
solder the wires to the crytal case before the crystals are soldered 
into the board? If not, is soldering the wires into the board first 
still seem like a good approach? Is there some nice trick for getting 
the grounding wire to lay against the side of the case prior to 
soldering? Any insights would be appreciated.

Tnx es 73 de KE0MF
Mike