1st welds with my 1st welder

Plenty of light! Especially starting out.

Get comfortable, and make sure that you're going stay comfortable for the entire weld. Ideally, you want a part of one of your forearms or an elbow in contact with something solidly connected to the work, either sliding or pivoting. Use both hands to steady the torch. If there's nothing available, either move yourself, the work, or clamp something to use as a rest.

Get close. You can't see the weld pool with the torch 3 feet away from the hood.

Ditch the CO2 and get some Argoshield! It's no real difference in price and so much nicer to work with.

Keep welds horizontal if you can while you're learning. Vertical is harder, though it's easy to make welds that look good.

Clean the mill scale off! "Bright, shiny metal" should be your mantra. The mill scale is great at stopping the weld pool "wetting" at the edges, so it's much harder to see. Worst case, an entire weld can sit on top of it.

Your beads aren't bad so you're on the right track, but I suspect you'd have a much better time after addressing some of those things. Then it's just practice :)

Happy welding!
 
+1 on the plenty of light.
I mounted a headlamp on the chin of my helmet and it helped tremendously.
 
On the straight lines, I agree with the comments, that you need to be able to see what you are doing. Good quality helmet, good lighting and setting the auto dark to an appropriate setting.

On this last one, I followed "the book" and set it at what it said for the type of welding I was doing. I was having a hard time seeing what I was doing, when the instructor told me to use a lower setting. He explained that there is a lot of variation between helmets and individual eyes, "the book" settings are just a starting point. If you can't see go to a lower (lighter) setting, if the arc is uncomfortable to look at turn it up (go darker).

Buying a better helmet, using more light and wearing reading glasses under the hood also made a big difference for me.
 
Thanks to all! I was going to post more photos of my crappy welds, but I think I need to watch a pro do it so I know what they should look like.

-I thought I was in a brightly-lit garage, but I'll try more light and see (pun intended) how that works.
-I turned down the auto-darkening helmet (HF Titanium, 9.3 sq in) from 12 to 11. I'll keep adjusting it.
-I'm not sure where I can hold the torch; how close to the tip and all that, to get it steady. I'll have to try different approaches as I practice, practice, practice.
-I think I need some sort of spring-loaded pliers. I guess I'll try the welding pliers. The HF ones seem good enough for now. Any particular brand, or are they all the same? And let's not start a war about Snap-On vs HF! Ha! I'm just starting out and don't need top o' the line ones anyway.
-I think I need to watch someone make the puddle so I know what it's supposed to look like.
-I was told to make the torch "sizzle like bacon".
I was pulling the torch as I made the bead, now I'm pushing it.
-I may buy or borrow different clamps. I have a feeling I will be using a variety, depending on what I'm clamping.
-I need to find time to practice, practice, practice.

I teach at a high school that has a welding program. The teacher there also teaches at the community college. I might see if he's amenable to giving me some pointers. I tried to sign up for the class at the CC, but it was already full.
 
Getting with your colleague at school is a great idea.

If it makes it any easier for you, many of us learned before auto-darkening helmets existed and used godawful 6010 on an ancient Lincoln "Tombstone" or "buzz box" that had automatic nothing and preset nada. Spend some time doing that, and any transformer MIG machine will feel like driving a Cadillac, and that's not even close to what it feels like to run a microprocessor feedback controlled inverter machine. The stick welder is where any school should start, unless demand forces them to just teach MIG from day one.

It's been awhile since we've seen @erikmannie, but his idea of a nice Saturday is practicing his welds and making piles of scrap. I spent many weekends and evenings in my Dad's shop doing much of the same thing.

If you want to learn more about puddle control, I also recommend trying out gas welding. It's really where the foundation is for learning how metal flows, how heat control works, and how to predict and influence metal to metal fusion.

Practicing the old techniques on old equipment the old way will make you better at all of the above.
 
Lots of great advice above so I will try not to repeat it.

As important as practice is cleaning your pieces before welding. A grinder with flap disks work well. I use a stationary disc sander quite a bit for getting a good clean stripped metal to lay a weld on. It looks like you are starting with dirty pieces with surface oxidation and probably a bit of oil.

When I am grinding the weld surfaces clean I also will usually make a bit of a 45 degree bevel on the ends when welding thicker material. This gives me a bit better penetration.

Someone told me years ago to not weld in a straight line. Instead make little tiny circles with the wire... kind of like a line of cursive "e"'s, if you are old enough to know what cursive is. I find I get much better welds this way.

The triangle welding magnets from Harbor Freight do a nice job of holding pieces together while starting a weld,

The big vice grip type locking welding clamps are what I usually use. The ones with the toggle ends work better than the round ends.

I still use regular C clamps a lot though.

The sound of the weld is what I go buy... but it just takes practice and experience to know the sound of a good weld from one that isn't going as well. I remember one time when nothing I did would make the weld sound right and of course the welds were awful. I finally figured out my AR/CO2 cylinder was empty.

I almost always rest my hand on something when laying down a weld. I have MUCH better control then when my hand is in the air not supported by anything.

I used a Harbor Freight darkening welding helmet for 30 years. When I switched to this $80 YesWeld helmet everything became SO MUCH EASIER! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VKNBJHM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

There are many other great self darkening welding helmets out there. After a lot of research and reading reviews this one seemed to be the best bang for buck. After using it I a very pleased with it. I always put it in the storage bag that came with it to keep the dust off when not in use.
 
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MikeInOr said:
Someone told me years ago to not weld in a straight line. Instead make little tiny circles with the wire... kind of like a line of cursive "e"'s, if you are old enough to know what cursive is. I find I get much better welds this way.
Click to expand...
What pre-game instruction I received on how to weld I got over the phone from my dad, and that's what he told me to do, so that's what I did on every weld for years. It wasn't until later that I learned why it's done, and that there are other patterns including straight (drag) that can be just as (or more) appropriate depending on the situation. I agree that the circular "cursive e" is a good place to start but I would suggest revisiting this topic down the road and exploring other techniques.

The circular pattern and zig zag really shines when welding two different thicknesses of metal together because you can travel more slowly over the thicker piece, directing more heat into it. You can get full penetration on the thick piece without blowing out the thin piece. You can do this to an extent when straight welding too, by holding the gun at an agle pointed more at the thick piece, but the circular and zip zag offers better control.

 
The key to decent welds is the ability to see the puddle. My welds got so much better when I installed a high intensity light over my welding area. If you can't see the details of the puddle it's hard to make consistent good welds. This goes for all processes.

Although I learned welding from my Dad, I got a heck of a lot better by taking a semester of night classes on welding at a vocational high school. The price was very reasonable and included materials. We covered most processes. The only requirement was to source your own helmet. We got a lot of welding time and that's how you get better at it. Strongly recommended. There's nothing like hands on instruction!
 
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