Wow, thanks for the tip! I never heard that one before.

I have a hot air station that I haven’t used much because I found it difficult to control. I will give it another try but with the Kapton!

To protect larger areas, you can use aluminium foil. It's usually best to hold the hot air pencil at a right-angle to the board; if you angle it like a soldering iron, the excess heat all goes in one direction and you're much more likely to blow off small adjacent components.