On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 6:26:21 AM UTC-5, Cursitor Doom wrote:
Hi all,

Anyone got any tips on how to avoid the unpleasant situation where you
try to de-solder a part on an elderly board and end up removing more than
just component leads? Most of the stuff I work on is at *least* 25 years
old and things start to get fragile.

thanks

Preheat the board before desoldering and apply some liquid flux. Make sure to use *enough* heat as too low is just as bad as too much. You want to reduce the time it takes to finish the process more than anything.