That sinking feeling

Soldering onto the ground bus is quite tricky due to the thickness of the wire.  Even with my relatively decent soldering iron, it involves heating the joint for 3-4 seconds to get it to the right temperature, which is greater than the ideal two second maximum for a joint.

For a more technical explanation of relative thermal mass, here's 80s American Soddering Guy:



I'm not worried about heating bus wire or any of the teflon wires attaching to the ground bus, but I really didn't want to overheat the vintage mustard cap that connects directly to the bus.  The solution is to use a crocodile clip as a heatsink:

The croc clip conducts all the heat away from the cap and removes any chance of overheating.  Simple, cheap and effective.