Compliant hot bar soldering apparatus.

A surface mount device (SMD) soldering assembly having a hot bar that pivots about a point at the center of its base to accommodate non-uniform surfaces, multi-layer circuit board flatness variations and soldering-lead height differences. The hot bar is moved toward the SMD by a main mounting bracket attached to a soldering machine until it contacts the leads to be soldered. When the hot bar contacts an uneven surface, a force is applied to a set of angularly mounted slides which are coupled to ends of a rocking bracket that has the hot bar mounted to its center section. Each angular slide is attached to a support plate at an angle such that it is tangent to an arc defined by the pivot point at the center of the base of the hot bar. As the angular slides move along such arc, the hot bar pivots and thereby adjusts to any unevenness so that optimum thermal contact is made with all the leads to be soldered.