I find desolder braid or vacuum suckers only work well enough on flat pcb
pads not bulbous solder and wire/s around tags of older stuff.

Anyone have improvements or alternatives to the technique I use.
Firstly assuming that the component lead length is not enough to cut and
re-use further along the wire. So definitely a matter of desoldering and
re-using what is there, maybe more than one wire , all quite properly,
looped through the tag before the original soldering.

The first thing I do is fix some small (ratchet clamping) medical artery
forceps / angler's hook remover tool/s on the exposed bit of the metal of
the wire/s up close to the tag to act as heatsinks to avoid melting the
sleeving , due to prolonged solder-iron heating of the tag. Then with what I
call a needle-probe, a large sewing needle, set into wooden dowel handle, I
explore while melting the solder blob and unhook the "free" end of the
wire/s and then pull through using the forceps.

--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
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