Drooled over the catalogs, saved my pennies working in the tobacco fields of NC, bought my first radio, a Heathkit GR-64. It worked the first time it was powered up although I'd be embarrassed by the low quality soldering job.
Worked on many abandoned kits, too, as a bench tech in a stereo shop, too. I always assumed that all solder joints were bad and, essentially, charged the customer for a complete build. That made me extra spending money for dates back then.
Now, I work at a ham radio company that still sells kits. Yep, the largest single root cause for kits not working is poor soldering. Some things don't change.
Cheers,
David