I'm still using an old Hakko 936 soldering station that I bought used sometime in 2002/3 (I think?). It gets the job done and the tips are still available.
The Hakko 936 is far superior to that unstackable joke of a housing Hakko slaps on their newer models! I wish Hakko would return to the old style! I have a stack of those puppies at my workbench, with different irons and tips!
I dyed all my top housings for my keyboard with Danger Zone keycaps. I got a blue anodized plate, and wanted the switches to match. I love how it turned out!
Here's a pic of my workbench, since that's sorta kinda actually the topic. It's embarrassingly cluttered with about 4 simultaneous projects!
I was gonna clean up a bit and take a shot of my workbench, but I decided to just say screw it and took the picture anyway, mess and all!
I'm currently working on the number pad for my 75% + 1 Danger Zone keyboard. The numberpad magnetically attaches to the main keyboard. One of the side projects I'm working on is an instrument panel with real gauges, readouts, tape meters, toggles, joysticks, etc for the game Kerbal Space Program. I'm building the instrument panel to mimic the style of the old Apollo space capsule's instrument panels. You can see the DSKY and some meters on the left wing of the work bench. That whole thing will mount into a notch cut out of my desk. The desk is huge, originally held three CRT monitors, but these days, with three LCDs, there's lots of wasted space. I plan to use up that space!
I also want to sneak in a bonus feature into my instrument panel... I want to take a Hakko 927's "guts" and fit them inside the panel, with a DIN plug on the front edge so I can plug in a soldering iron and use it at my desk too. I'd REALLY like to do that, so it's just always there incase I need it. Then I don't have to grab a soldering station from the workbench. That'll be another place I work on stuff from.
