Hi Shane A very slight addition to Dale's excellent advice, a probe made of stainless tubing might get hot more slowly than one made of steel as stainless is a poorere conductor of heat.
I wonder if a stainless tube just bigger than the solder might make a usefull "solder guide' down which you could slide the solder. We've done this for electronics where there aren't available guides on which to home in the iron. for more on this solder guide as we use it, see: The Ja3TBW solder guide in The Smith-Kettlewell Technical file http://www.ski.org/Rehab/Sktf Tom
