A number of years ago when I put together an old Heathkit Hm102 watt meter
swr bridge, I had never done a lot of soldering prior to that
experience.  What I did at this point was to use the access wire from each
component as a heat sync to prevent a cold solder joint.  I didn't cut the
excess leads until they were soldered on to the board because if I had I
probably would have dammaged a component or two in the process. 73- kk3f