Sockets for the ICs

[Tor]

I'm waiting for the kit to arrive, but I'm planning to socket everything (using machined sockets). As for bending IC pins, I never found that to be a problem - new ICs are always wide, so I just press the IC sideways on the tabletop, first one side then the other, and then all pins are aligned and it'll go smoothly into the socket. I insert one side first, press a little, then the other side (i.e. I bend the pins so that the IC is just a tiny bit wide for the socket). If I somehow bend the bins too much it's easy enough to bend them back by using the edge of the table.
Been doing it this way since the late seventies.