Soldering is something where bad tools do genuinely make it extremely hard to do a good job. I used my dad's old soldering iron for a while, where it just plugs into the wall and gets hot, with no other temperature control than (I assume) some kind of thermal switch to stop it melting. I always hated soldering with that thing, and my joints looked awful. Then I got a pinecil, and my experience changed completely. Super cheap, heats up in seconds, does perfect soldering, and makes everything so much more fun and easy. Heavily recommend if you want to solder but are having problems with your existing iron https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...