> No. (But on the other hand, "Anything is a soldering kit if you're brave enough!")
No kidding - hand-soldering a few surface-mount components is hard enough, let alone 10,000 of them! Though I suppose you'd get very good at it by the time you were done. Maybe 20 components per day for 500 days or something.
Liquid solder flux is key. The core of the method: Melt a small blob of tin onto a solder pad. Solder flux is applied to tin blob. Hold component to blob with tweezers. Melt blob with iron. Component will now stay put. Apply solder to the other pad. Done.
This makes use of the solder's surface tension and adherence properties; The solder only wants to stick to hot metal surfaces, and surface tension will actually align the component on the pad. Very clever! The step that adds flux is there to allow us to re-melt the solder, have it flow well, and crystallize correctly when it cools (so no cold joints).
Chips are soldered with a logical extension of the technique that further employs the solder's preferences for sticking to this and flowing like that :)
After having been taught this, I now find through-hole much more of a hassle. It's nice to be free of the hole-poking and board-flipping and leg-snipping. And it's nice to be able to avoid the increased circuit noise that the superfluous metal brings (the legs are effectively antennae!).
Here is where I learned: https://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Solde...