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soldering iron is no good, not if you want a clean finish. for which you'll need to use as little solder as possible so the capillary action would suck all the solder into the gaps and leave nothing to clean up. You want something that heats a small radius quickly. Torch is the more traditional method. Any torch butane lighter will work, but try to get one with a good igniter so it doesn't break and you won't need to light it with another lighter, which will take away one of your hands that can be used to position your PE.
Better yet if you invested in a resistance solder like those sold by american beauty. They only heat the regions between your 2 probes, and the probes work sort of like tweezers so you can put both of your hands into action, can really speed things up.
trick is to get the smallest soldering wires you can find. I'm using 0.3mm solders. Cut them to 1mm segments and place those before applying heat. Small amount of soldering paste helps too.
That is painting all soldering irons into the same corner.
No your general run of the mill big soldering gun wouldn't be practical....but your pencil style soldering iron like used in electronics will work just as well. I have a variable pencil style soldering iron that goes from 0 to 40W, and works like a charm for soldering PE, no real difference to the butane powered irons other than it plugs in instead of running on butane.
The secret to getting good soldered joints isn't in the tool, but the use of soldering flux, a little bit of that on the parts you are soldering, and the solder will get sucked into the joint very nicely.
