I may be in the minority for someone who likes to use the Higley trim tool. There are plenty of other good techniques.

I figured out pretty quickly that I needed more than one iron. Mostly I have a standard and trim iron. I keep the trim iron on low for initial tacking perimeters. The standard iron is kept at 270 - 300. Sometimes I pull out an old iron (donated by a friend) and turn the heat up - use it for shrinking.

Hangar 9 has some covering topics too. Check out their website.