Did I ruin it?

[zwiller]

Last night I was mid way through populating my board when I ran into some issues with my 6 space IC sockets.  When soldering the resistors near the holes for the sockets I made a few mistakes and a few bridges of solder over socket holes.  Didn't think much of it at the time.  When it came to solder the sockets I had a heck of a time getting the sockets in their holes even after cleaning them up prior to installation.  Next thing you know, 4 sockets ruined and as I am trying to clean the socket holes, I managed to remove the traces on a few holes.   

This happened twice.  Called it quits and tried again today.  I did get a socket into one of its holes, but I simply cannot get solder to flow at all without the trace.  Lesson learned so far, these traces are more delicate than I expected. 

Can I fix this or is it time to scrap?  Thinking I could make a desperate attempt to fix from top?   Thanks in advance.

[zwiller]

Apologies...  A few soldering pads are lifted, not traces.  Sorry (newbie still)

[tbone321]

Solder is not going to flow if there is nothing for it to flow to.  You can create new connections where the pads have lifted in most cases but it takes patients and a little skill.  You might want to post a closeup picture of the back of the board so we can see how bad it really is.  If it is just the pads that lifted and broke off you can scrape some of the solder mask away from the end of the damaged trace and use a thin piece of wire to connect the pin to the damaged trace.

[n1ist]

Can you show us some pictures?  Which pads were lifted?  Pins 3 and 5 are not used, so if it one of those, just ignore it.
/mike

[PJNMCT]

...
This happened twice.  Called it quits and tried again today.  I did get a socket into one of its holes, but I simply cannot get solder to flow at all without the trace.  Lesson learned so far, these traces are more delicate than I expected. 

Can I fix this or is it time to scrap?  Thinking I could make a desperate attempt to fix from top?   Thanks in advance.

You can fix a trace by soldering a jumper (scrap piece of wire) directly to the "pin" on the socket and then soldering the other end to a place where the trace goes to. You will need to be patient but you can do it. You can do this for each messed up pad. It may not look the best when you are done but it can save a board.

Make sure you use insulated wire with the ends stripped just enough to solder to.

After all, traces are really just wiring from one point to another. Granted, there is more to it than that but it really is that simple.

-Paul

[zwiller]

Spent a half hour trying capture an image of the problem.  Too small, not enough detail to see what's going on.  I will send a sketch tom.  Had enough for today.  Got me thinking...

Although I haven't given up hope on this board, I do have a spare.  Plus, I have to order more parts anyway since I ruined at least 4 IC sockets. 

Thanks for your help so far.