The difference between a dirty soldering gun and CLEAN

I cleaned my gun on my cousin's instructions (just using sandpaper and tightening the joints) and WOW what a difference. If you didn't know the saga....I had a couple of cords that were not long enough, and I pulled the third too tight and snapped it (imagine that)! Then I went and bought another handy-dandy battery 10 light pack of GOW flora-lights from Michaels (3.99+tax what a deal) and tried to right my wrongs! I found that my pen was GLOPPY, SLOPPY and OUT OF CONTROL...so as mentionted earlier, I cleaned it up and I am riding smooooooooooooooooth and thin! I'm so happy! Pic one is the comparison, pic two is the house with the lights on...but no one is home or ready to live there yet!!