Dog wrote on 2021-11-01, 22:01:

No fighting, I'm just trying to get better at this. Mistakes happen, and as majestyk mentioned earlier its very easy to have this this kind of damage. I just didn't see it.

I feel kinda excited about it.

..not really 'easy' unless you know what you're doing. I re-capped a KT7A today, process took ten hours I would say in total for the 30-40 electrolytics on the board... and this is with many years of experience.

You can do it much quicker with a desoldering gun or a solder pot (solder pot where you dip the back of the board where the leads are into the molten solder and then pull the existing cap out and put the fresh cap in -- be careful of SMDs on the underside of the PCB with this method)...

But when you do not have a honed technique or get impatient and pull the lead out by force or jam the replacement in forcefully, you can damage the pad or via.

It is a pain in the ass to clear the holes in boards from that era, in particular when they are attached to large planes: multiple layers, tiny holes that make it difficult to transfer heat (especially with ASUS boards) and lots of traces nearby that can be damaged.

Even with a desoldering gun, for ground planes I had to set it at max temp (450C) and keep heating for several seconds until solder melted on both sides of the hole. You can also clear the holes by heating a dental pick or similar, but you need a lot of patience and a good technique as mentioned above if you don't want to make a mess. I would forget about using braid, you will probably end up burning the solder mask before the hole clears.