[ottoman]

U shouldn't need to use it. Standard solder will do the Job. I personally use liquid flux and lots of it where vias are concerned.

Tinning the vias should be no problem as after youve used the blade to remove the coating the copper underneath should have a rough surface that the solder sticks to, but as for filling the gap in the via, well that can be a bit hit n miss.

I usually end up using the wire as a bridge to force the solder to "blob" over the gap, this means u tin the via, tin the wire, apply lots of liquid flux and then solder the wire across the gap and the solder should run across the wire sealing the via over and giving a good bond.

Looking at the vias, some of them route back to the solder pad area used on the v5 / v7 mobos. Anyone know if its possible to cut down the via number by using the solder pads further back?