Wagner,

Mass soldering of SMD boards is done my several processes
1) silkscreen gluey solder paste onto board
2) place components
3) let dry
4) reflow.  This takes very careful heat control to melt the solder,
but not the parts.  I doubt you could do it in your toaster oven,
because you'd overheat the parts before the solder flows

Another (unusual) method uses hot fluorocarbon vapor to do the
reflow.

When possible, its really cheap to
1) glue the parts to the board without solder
2) wave solder the whole board
Which requires the parts to take a solder bath.  Some parts can be
"dip" soldered like this, others not.

I do SMD prototyping by
1) apply solder paste using air-piston syringe.
2) reflow by hand with a hot-air pencil
Our soldering station here includes these tools plus through hole
rework tools and cost about $USD 3000, used.  Not too cheap.

On my bench, I
1) hold parts with superglue or tweezers
2) hold my breath
3) solder with teeny tiny soldering iron
4) wait for alleged toxic vapor from superglue to dissipate and
solder to cool
5) breathe
6) let go of tweezers

Cheaper, but it takes a steady hand and won't work on TSSOP or other
really dense chip scale stuff.  I'm getting good at SOIC's though!

So, all kidding aside, I would recommend the tiny soldering iron for
your prototyping your SMD PICS.  (see this IS on topic)

------------
Barry King, KA1NLH
Engineering Manager
NRG Systems "Measuring the Wind's Energy"
Hinesburg, Vermont, USA
www.nrgsystems.com