i solved all my soldering needs in one fell swoop about 3 years ago when i bought one of these. "cheap Chinese crap" that has been the best soldering iron i have ever owned... i bought it to do surface mount electronic parts, but, it works great for everything, including using the hot air gun to shrink tubing.
the temperature settings for both the soldering iron and hot air gun are able to be set in single degree celsius from 100 to 400, allowing me to heat up medium size brass blocks, or small handrails equally well.
the one i bought way back when was about $60, but they have dropped to less than $50...