Jody Welding Tips and Tricks: A Practical Welder’s Guide

You set your MIG machine to 24 volts, cranked the wire feed up, and ran a bead on scrap steel. What came out was a lumpy, convex, spitting mess that looked like a caterpillared zipper. You blamed the machine. The machine was fine. The fix was three small changes — a cleaner edge, a shorter stickout, and slower travel — that took the same money and cost you nothing. That is exactly the kind of ‘down and dirty’ fix that Jody Collier has been teaching free on Welding Tips and Tricks for nearly two decades: read the bead, change one variable, repeat. This guide turns that whole approach into a single playbook you can actually use at the bench tonight.

Why Jody Collier’s ‘Down and Dirty’ Approach to Welding Actually Works

You set your MIG machine to 24 volts, cranked the wire feed up, and ran a bead on scrap steel. What came out was lumpy, convex, and spitting. You blamed the machine. The machine was fine. The fix was three free changes: a cleaner edge, a shorter stickout, slower travel.

Blaming the machine instead of reading the bead is the most expensive habit in welding. It sends people shopping for a bigger welder when the answer was sitting in the travel speed all along. Jody Collier has spent nearly two decades teaching people to stop doing that.

Who Jody Collier Is

Jody Collier runs Welding Tips and Tricks, a site he started in 2007 that describes itself as home to “TIG, MIG, Stick and a pantload of other info.” It now carries more than 1,000 free articles and several hundred free videos, and its copyright notice still reads 2007 to 2025. The archive says the same thing: this is not a flash-in-the-pan channel.

His own introduction is short and worth reading in full:

That last clause is the whole method: concise, clear explanation, crisp arc shot. No ten-minute intro, no background music shouting over the narration.

The Channel, the Tagline, and the Store That Pays for It

The YouTube channel carries the same voice. Its tagline is “Clear Arc Shots & Plain Talk to help you Pass a Test, Fix Stuff, Build Stuff, Get a Raise, Build a Better Life.” Read it and you know who the videos are for: not engineers chasing a procedure, but working welders and people trying to become working welders. Someone studying for a test. Someone who has to fix a trailer tonight. Someone who wants the raise.

The channel has well over a million subscribers, which makes sense once you understand the economics. The videos are free because something else pays the bills: the online store Weldmonger, described as the “home of the Original made in USA TIG finger.” Store revenue funds the free instruction. That is why you can watch a hundred arc shots without a paywall, and why the advice stays practical rather than sales-driven.

Four Processes, One Method

Everything on the site is organised around four processes, which gives you a map of the whole library:

• TIG (GTAW) — the clean, precise, slower process where you control the puddle directly.
• MIG (GMAW) — the fast, versatile production process most people learn first.
• Stick (SMAW) — the portable, forgiving process that works outdoors and on dirty steel.
• Flux core — self-shielded and gas-shielded FCAW, the heavy-duty option for structural and outdoor work.

The same four-process framework shows up on pages across this site too, including our guide to aluminum MIG welding and our look at why SMAW still wins. Same mental model, different material.

Why This Style Works Pedagogically

Here is the part that matters if you are learning alone, without a mentor over your shoulder. Classroom teaching relies on feedback that arrives slowly: mistake, finish the joint, cut it out, grind it, try again, and someone walks over an hour later.

Arc footage collapses that delay. You see the wire, the puddle, the bead forming, and the defect. Then you change one variable and watch what happens. The loop closes in under a minute. For a self-taught learner, that feedback speed is the difference between frustration and progress, and it is the reason this style has stuck for twenty years.

One more thing makes it work: diagnosis is treated as a skill, not a gift. You are never told “this machine is bad” or “use the blue wire.” You are taught to look at the bead and ask what shape it is, what the arc sounded like, and what both mean together. Once you can do that, every machine on earth becomes usable.

What You Will Be Able to Do After Reading

By the end you will set up a machine from scratch without a chart, hold a consistent stickout and gun angle, tell spatter from porosity from cold-lapping by looking at the bead, control travel speed well enough to stop blowing through 16-gauge, and keep fume out of your garage bay. You will also have a written recipe book and a coupon habit that turns every good bead into a repeatable setting.

That is the deal Jody Collier has been offering for two decades, and it costs nothing but attention. Let’s start with the framework that makes all of it make sense.

The Core Mental Model: Every Weld Is Amps, Volts, Heat, and Travel Speed

Every tip in this guide rests on one idea: a weld is not something mysterious the machine does to you. It is the result of four numbers you can read, change, and write down. Amps, volts, heat input, travel speed. Get those four right and you can walk up to an unfamiliar machine and lay down a decent bead in the first five minutes. Leave one out and you will spend an afternoon blaming the gun, the gas, the wire, or your own hands.

This is the thinking behind Jody Collier’s “down and dirty” method on Welding Tips and Tricks: read the bead, change one variable, read it again. The framework below is what makes that method actually work.

Amps: How fast the base metal melts

Amperage is the appetite of the arc. It controls how quickly the arc melts the base metal and the filler wire. Too little and you get a cold, narrow bead sitting on top of the steel with the toes barely melting in. Too much and the puddle becomes a lake that spreads sideways, sags, warps the plate, and dishes out the root.

Miller puts a number on it: each .001 inch of material thickness wants roughly 1 amp of output, so .125-inch steel starts near 125 amps. Treat that as a starting point, not a spec. It assumes clean mild steel, a good joint, moderate travel speed, and a machine and wire that can deliver it.

The four levers at a glance

Variable	What it really controls	Too much	Too little
Amps	Melting rate of base metal and wire	Wide, flat, sagging bead; burn-through on thin stock	Narrow, cold, convex bead; shallow penetration
Volts	Arc length and bead spread	Long, lazy arc; wide, flat bead; excess spatter	Stubbing, erratic arc; narrow bead
Heat input	Total energy delivered per inch	Distortion, warping, burn-through, brittle HAZ	Cold lap, lack of fusion, porosity
Travel speed	How fast the puddle is moved along the joint	Too slow: wide bead, reduced penetration	Too fast: narrow convex bead, poor toe tie-in

Wire diameter follows amperage, not the other way around. Miller’s chart for choosing wire by output range is worth memorising:

Solid wire size and matching amperage range

Wire diameter	Amperage range
.023 in	30 to 130 amps
.030 in	40 to 145 amps
.035 in	50 to 180 amps
.045 in	75 to 250 amps

Volts: How long the arc burns and how wide the bead spreads

Voltage does not melt metal. It sets arc length, and with it how wide the puddle spreads and how much shielding the arc gets. ESAB puts it plainly: voltage controls arc length, while wire feed speed sets the rate at which filler metal enters the pool and, on most constant-voltage machines, sets welding amperage.

That clause explains the most common wiring confusion at the bench. On MIG (constant voltage), wire feed speed is the throttle: crank the feeder up and the machine raises amperage to keep the arc stable. On stick and TIG (constant current), you set the amperage and the feeder follows to keep up, which is one reason stick welding is so forgiving. Change wire speed without changing voltage and you get a stubbing, erratic arc that spits and pops instead of laying down metal.

Travel speed and heat input

Travel speed is the fourth lever and the one beginners rarely think of. Miller is blunt about it: traveling too fast gives a narrow, convex bead with poor toe tie-in and insufficient penetration, while traveling too slow dumps too much heat into the joint, widens the bead, reduces penetration, and can burn through thin material.

Heat input is the summary number: amps multiplied by volts, divided by travel speed. That is the energy going into each inch of joint. It is why “just turn up the amps” is the most common beginner mistake. More amps without a matching change in travel speed means more heat, more distortion, more spatter, and a plate that no longer lies flat on the table.

The two rules of a repeatable recipe

First: change one variable at a time. Two changes at once tell you nothing about what fixed the problem. Second: the moment you get a bead you like, write the settings down. Amps, volts, wire size, gas, stickout, travel speed. A scrawled note on the back of a scrap coupon beats anything you will remember a week later.

There is a reason to bother. Miller notes that labor is roughly 85 percent of a welding operation’s costs, so technique and consumable choice matter far more than machine price. A $2,000 machine welded badly still makes bad parts. The welder who can diagnose a bad bead in thirty seconds saves the job, and that skill is a setting sheet and a habit, not a purchase.

Those habits travel well across industries. Welding shows up in marine, construction, energy, and aerospace work, with standards like AWS D1.1/D1.1M governing structural steel fabrication. That is why the same four variables come up on every job site and in every aerospace TIG program you will ever see.

MIG Welding Tips and Tricks: Dialing In Without a Chart

MIG gets a bad reputation for being hard to set up, mostly because people skip the order of operations: wire speed, then voltage, then travel speed, then blame the machine. A good bead comes from a repeatable sequence: polarity, wire, feed speed, voltage, gas, stickout, technique. Get those seven in order and you rarely need a chart again.

Step 1: Confirm Polarity Before You Strike an Arc

Solid-wire MIG runs DC electrode positive (DCEP): the gun is positive, the work clamp negative. ESAB confirms that DCEP is the typical MIG setting and delivers deeper penetration than DCEN.

On DCEN a solid-wire gun gives a fat, spattery, poorly penetrating bead that looks like a machine fault. It is a polarity fault. Flip the switch or swap the leads and try again.

Step 2: Match the Wire Diameter, Then Set the Feed Speed

Wire diameter must match the amperage and the material. .030 is the general-purpose choice for thin sheet and light structural work. .035 handles 1/8-inch plate and is the sweet spot for home and shop work. .045 is for 1/4-inch plate and up, or production work with fewer spool changes. Heavy wire on thin material burns through it; tiny wire on heavy plate gives a cold bead and a lot of walking.

On a constant-voltage MIG machine, wire feed speed is your amperage control. Miller publishes multipliers that get you close before you fine-tune:

Wire diameter	Feed factor	At 125 amps
.023 in	3.5 in/min per amp	437 in/min
.030 in	2.0 in/min per amp	250 in/min
.035 in	1.6 in/min per amp	200 in/min
.045 in	1.0 in/min per amp	125 in/min

Worked example: 125 amps on .030-inch wire starts near 250 inches per minute. Adjust from there based on how the bead behaves.

Step 3: Voltage Sets Arc Length and Bead Width

Voltage is not “how hot” the way people think. It controls arc length, and arc length controls how wide the puddle spreads and how much the bead is actually penetrated. Miller’s guidance is simple: raise voltage if the arc stubs into the workpiece, and lower it if the arc is erratic and burns at the tip.

The two failure modes: voltage too high gives poor arc control, inconsistent penetration and a turbulent pool; too low gives a poor arc start, excessive spatter, a convex bead and poor toe tie-in. Hold arc length at about 1/4 inch, slightly longer than the wire diameter.

Step 4: Pick Your Shielding Gas

Per ESAB’s comparison, 100% CO2 is cost-effective and penetrates well but gives more spatter and fume with a less stable arc. Argon blends such as C25 (75% argon / 25% CO2) give better arc stability, less spatter and fume, and improved weld appearance.

C25 is the sensible default for home and shop MIG on mild steel; pure argon is used for TIG and aluminium MIG, where the chemistry matters. Not sure what your shop carries? Air Gas Welding Explained breaks down cylinders, mixes and flow rates.

Step 5: Hold the Right Stickout

Stickout is the distance from the contact tip to the work. ESAB recommends roughly 3/8 to 1/2 inch for small diameters such as .030 wire and 5/8 to 3/4 inch for larger ones such as 1/16 wire. ESAB also warns that longer stickout reduces weld penetration and can cause porosity through lost shielding gas coverage, while a too-short stickout makes the joint hard to see.

Long stickout is the most common hidden problem on a big roll of wire. If penetration is weak and you see pinholes, shorten the gun neck or trim the liner before you blame your settings.

Step 6: Gun Angle, Travel Speed and Puddle Control

• Drag angle 10 to 15 degrees. Push the gun so the wire aims at the leading edge of the puddle. Pulling behind the puddle gives ugly, wide, poorly penetrated beads.
• Flat and horizontal only for pushing. Vertical-up and overhead are far easier with drag and a shorter arc.
• Stringers over weave on thin material. Weaving hot, thin plate burns through it and stacks heat in one spot.
• Keep the nozzle at a consistent height, roughly 1/2 inch off the work. A wandering nozzle changes shielding coverage and porosity appears out of nowhere.
• Stay ahead of the puddle so you can always see the joint and the leading edge of the bead.

Starting Settings for Common Thicknesses

Material	Wire	Wire feed	Amps	Voltage
16 ga (.060)	.035	145–175 ipm	90–110	17–18
1/8 in (.125)	.035	195–225 ipm	120–140	18–19
1/8 in (.125)	.045	130–150 ipm	130–150	18–19
3/16 in (.187)	.035	255–290 ipm	160–180	19–20
3/16 in (.187)	.045	170–200 ipm	170–200	19–20
1/4 in (.250)	.035	320–370 ipm	200–230	21–22
1/4 in (.250)	.045	210–250 ipm	210–250	22–23

Verify these on your machine. Wire brands, gas mixes, joint design, position and shielding all shift the numbers, and these are starting points for mild steel with C25, not a substitute for a WPS.

Write the Recipe Down

The habit that separates a hobbyist from a working fabricator is the coupon book. Write the settings on the coupon: thickness, wire, gas, wire feed, amps, volts, stickout, travel speed. It is the same read-the-bead discipline taught free at Welding Tips and Tricks.

Troubleshooting Mini-List

• Spatter: voltage too low, feed speed too high, or straight CO2 on a thin bead. Clean the work, drop feed speed slightly, or switch to a blend.
• Stubbing (the arc buries itself): voltage too low or feed speed too fast for the amperage. Add a half volt at a time and listen for a steadier hiss.
• Bird-nesting (wire flailing off the drive rollers): feed speed too high for the wire diameter, or a worn liner and drive roller. Look for a tight, shiny patch in the gun liner.
• Porosity (pinholes): dirty or oily metal, damp wire, gas flow too low, or stickout too long. Clean the metal, check the flowmeter, shorten the stickout.

Once polarity is right and the wire, feed speed, voltage and gas are dialed, everything left is stickout and technique. Change one variable at a time and the bead will tell you what it needs next.

TIG Welding Tips and Tricks: Controlling the Pool One Inch at a Time

Of the four processes, TIG (also known as Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW)) humbles you the fastest. There is no wire feed racing to cover a mistake and no flux to hide behind, just you, a tungsten, a puddle, and a filler rod. Learn to control that puddle one inch at a time and you can take on work no other process touches.

Polarity, Amperage, and the Heat Advantage

For most steel and stainless work, TIG runs on DCEN (Direct Current Electrode Negative), which pushes most of the arc heat into the base metal instead of the tungsten. That is the exact opposite of DCEP on solid wire MIG, and it is why TIG delivers deep penetration with surgical precision.

Aluminium changes the rules. It needs alternating current (AC), where the electrode positive half of the cycle delivers the “cleaning action” that breaks up the tough aluminium oxide layer, while the electrode negative half drives heat into the material. Most modern machines give you an AC balance control to suit the job.

TIG amperage generally runs lower than the equivalent MIG setting for the same thickness, because the arc is concentrated into a small puddle rather than spread out. As a loose starting point, thin sheet steel sits around 30-70 amps, and stainless is similar. Aluminium thickness dictates more, often starting higher for thicker stock while still on AC. Whatever the chart says, start lower than you think and creep up.

Tungsten, Prep, and Your Torch Setup

Your arc is only as clean as your tungsten, and prep will save you more headaches than anything else in your torch.

• 2% Lanthanated (Blue): your jack of all trades for DC work, great for steel and stainless with excellent arc stability.
• Ceriated (Orange): ideal for AC aluminium or machines running lower amperages, and very easy to strike an arc with.
• Thoriated (Red): useful where the machine’s DC balance is limited, but be cautious with grinding dust and follow safety practices.
• Pure Tungsten (Green): still used for some AC aluminium work, though most modern welders lean towards lanthanated or ceriated.

When prepping, grind on the circumference only, never along the length. Take a 20-40 degree point for DC work; for AC aluminium a blunter or balled tip is far more common, depending on the machine. Before touching your work, wipe the tungsten down with a dedicated aluminum cleaner for welding to prevent cross contamination.

Tighten the cup, diffuser, collet, and gas lens with care. Do not force threads. Start them by hand, keep them square, then lightly tighten. Cross-threading a gas lens is an expensive mistake and ruins gas flow. Pure argon is the standard for steel and stainless, while aluminium often benefits from helium or an argon/helium mix. For argon, a general range is around 15-25 cfh for most work, though larger cups or wider joints may need more. Always check your flowmeter, not just the bottle valve. On tube work in stainless or aluminium, use a reverse-flow or back purge to prevent sugaring inside the joint.

Puddle Control, Pulsing, and Aluminum Specifics

The golden rule is simple: keep the puddle small and use the arc to push the puddle, not attack it. Feed the filler rod into the leading edge of the puddle at roughly 15-45 degrees and dab it, never dip and drag. That single habit is what separates a dime stack from a pile of bird poop.

Two features will speed up your learning: 2T and 3T, plus pulsing. 2T is the standard trigger hold, press to start and release to stop. 3T adds upslope, downslope, and a maintained current for finer control. Pulsing suits thin stainless or aluminium, letting the puddle cool between peaks and cutting heat input and burn through. Every machine is different, so spend five minutes on scrap and find your buttons.

Aluminium has two extra prerequisites. First, use a dedicated, stainless-brush-free aluminum wire brush kept strictly for aluminium, and brush in a straight motion to break up oxide without smearing contaminants. Prep guides such as Aluminum Cleaner for Welding: How to Prep Aluminum Right will keep you on track. Second, watch your filler. 4043 is fluid and crack resistant for most general aluminium work, while 5356 is stronger and more corrosion resistant, a common choice for marine jobs such as aluminum boat welding. Above all, crater fill is mandatory. Tapering the amps down with downslope, or pulsing at the end of the bead, prevents a porous crater.

Diagnosing The Puddle

Your puddle is talking to you. You just have to learn its language.

• Wandering arc on a narrow bead: almost always a contaminated or badly prepped tungsten. Stop, grind the circumference again, and wipe it down.
• Discolored or balled tip: touching the filler rod, dipping into the puddle, or welding dirty material contaminates it. Grind it back to a clean point or ball and re-establish the arc.
• Porosity in an aluminium bead: nine times out of ten it is contamination. Check shielding gas flow, leaks, and that you are on the right gas, re-clean with your dedicated brush and cleaner, and make sure the filler is not oily. As OSHA notes, welding is hot work and fume control matters, but contamination is the number one culprit for porosity, not your fume hood.

Most importantly, treat practice as a one inch at a time endeavor. Do not chase a foot long bead on your first attempt. Chase a perfect inch, analyze it against Miller’s criteria of penetration, profile, width, and tie-in, change one variable, and repeat. It is the quickest way to gain control over the hardest process to learn.

Stick (SMAW) Welding Tips and Tricks: The Process That Works Anywhere

There is a reason every farm shed, trailer hitch and storm-damaged gate gets fixed with a stick welder. Shielded metal arc welding, or SMAW, needs nothing but a power source, a stick of flux-coated electrode and a pair of gloves. No gas bottles to rent, no spatter to grind off, no machine to babysit. AWS lists SMAW as one of the four main arc welding processes, alongside GTAW, GMAW and FCAW, and it is still the process you will reach for when the job is dirty, remote, outdoors or simply too important to trust to a beginner’s settings.

But “forgiving” does not mean “careless.” A stick weld that looks fine can hide a porous, under-penetrated joint, and the difference between a professional bead and a weak one comes down to a handful of small habits. Here is the way Jody Collier and other working instructors break it down, process by process.

Why Keep Stick in Your Toolkit

Before the technique, the case for the process. Stick welding is the most portable arc welding method there is, and portability is not a nostalgic benefit. It is the reason the process survives in a way that gas-shielded welding does not.

• No gas, no cylinders, no regulator to freeze up. Your shop can be a truck bed.
• Almost no spatter cleanup. A flux coat means the molten metal is protected by its own covering, so there is no wire feeding through a gas nozzle to spatter and stick to your work.
• It works outdoors in wind and rain. Shielding gas gets blown away. A flux coating does not care about the weather.
• It handles dirty, rusty, painted and mismatched steel that would give a MIG operator fits.
• It is the repair process for farm, trailer and equipment machinery, where a breakdown means a tractor sits until a rod and a machine show up.

Many hobbyists who learn TIG first are shocked at how quickly they can knock out a hitch, a gate or a trailer frame with a 6013 rod and a cheap inverter. If you want the full case for the process, the advantages of stick welding are worth a read. If you have ever wondered how the rods are classified, this guide to all-position welding rods breaks down the numbering system that trips up a lot of beginners.

Choosing the Electrode: 6013 vs 7018 vs 6010

Stick electrode classification looks cryptic but it is mostly telling you two things: tensile strength and what the deposit can handle.

E6013 is the fast, easy, all-position electrode. It strikes easily, runs smoothly in every position, produces a smooth bead with modest penetration, and tolerates dirty and rusty mild steel. It is the electrode for home projects, thin material, and general fabrication where strength is not the primary concern. If you only own one rod, own a 6013.

E7018 is the low-hydrogen workhorse. It produces a deposit with diffusible hydrogen low enough to resist cracking in thick, restrained or highly stressed joints, and it is the standard choice for structural and pressure-vessel work. It is stronger than a 6013. It is also more demanding: you must keep it dry, you need a clean ground clamp, and a poor setup will give you a gritty, crack-prone bead. Most of the specialty electrode selection decisions come down to the same question of matching filler to base metal strength.

E6010 is the deep-penetration electrode, normally run DCEN (electrode negative) rather than DCEP. The reverse polarity drives more heat into the workpiece, which is exactly what you want on thick, dirty or scaled steel. Expect more spatter than a 6013.

Amperage by Electrode Diameter

Amps control penetration and melt rate. Too few amps and you get a cold, narrow bead sitting on top of the steel. Too many and you get burn-through, undercut and a spatter-fest. Here are the typical manufacturer-recommended ranges for a 3/32-inch E6013, and they are exactly the numbers Jody-style charts tend to show:

Electrode Diameter	Typical Amperage Range (E6013)
1/8 in	40 to 80 amps
3/32 in	60 to 120 amps
1/16 in	70 to 150 amps
5/32 in	100 to 175 amps
3/16 in	110 to 220 amps
1/4 in	150 to 260 amps

These are starting ranges, not specs. A common shop rule of thumb is roughly one amp per .001 inch of electrode diameter, so a 3/32-inch rod lands around 125 amps. But the maker’s chart always wins, and the chart varies by brand and by the position you are welding in. The Fabricator and the AWS education library are both good places to check what a specific rod wants before you dial in.

Polarity, Striking and the Arc

Polarity is where stick bites people. E6013 and E7018 both run DCEP, electrode positive, on a standard inverter. E6010 normally runs DCEN for that deeper penetration. If your machine has a polarity switch, check it against the rod packaging before you strike an arc, because reversed polarity on the wrong rod is a spatter and bead-shape problem you will spend an hour blaming on your technique.

Striking the arc: scratch-start and drag the electrode a short distance into the joint, or tap it and drag. Tapping is faster and puts less heat into the workpiece, so start there. You are trying to land the arc at the edge of the joint and then immediately move into the puddle.

Arc length: hold the arc length roughly equal to the diameter of the electrode. That means a 1/8-inch rod wants about a 1/8-inch gap. Too long and you lose penetration and start spattering; too short and the electrode touches, which causes stubbing and a wandering arc.

Watch the puddle, not the arc. The bright flickering cone above the work is where beginners stare. The real information is in the puddle itself: how wide it is, how long it takes to freeze, whether it is moving where you want it to go.

Listen to the sound. A good stick arc has a smooth, frying-bacon hiss. Change the arc length and the pitch changes. If the sound turns ragged or popping, your arc length or your amps are off. Your ears are a genuine instrument here, and the arc-shot videos on the Welding Tips and Tricks site are useful partly because you can hear the difference between a good arc and a bad one.

Weaving, Stringers and the 45-Degree Tilt

Stringers are straight beads with no side-to-side motion. They are faster, they narrow the heat zone, and they are what you want on most code work and on thick plate where distortion is the concern.

Weaving means moving the electrode side to side to widen the bead. Weave width, frequency and pause at the toe all affect penetration and heat distribution, and on a code job the weave pattern is specified in the procedure, not invented at the bench.

In flat position, tilt the electrode about 45 degrees in the direction you are pushing the puddle. This is the “directional arc” technique: it directs the arc force one way, giving you a flatter bead with better penetration and better visibility of the joint. The TWI technical FAQs explain the same idea in more depth if you want the theory behind it.

Vertical-Up and Overhead

Vertical-up is the position that punishes beginners, because gravity fights the puddle and the arc wants to run downhill. The E6013 is the better rod for it because its slag and puddle freeze quickly, which helps control the melt and reduces the chance of a runaway. Work in small beads, keep the electrode angled slightly upward into the puddle, and do not try to lay a big wide bead.

For vertical-up on code work, E7018 is the specified choice. It is more difficult to run, requires a clean setup and more amps than beginners expect, but it is what the procedure demands when strength matters.

Overhead is mostly a matter of gravity management and electrode angle, plus the fact that spatter falls onto your hood and plate. Many shops will tell you to run a 6013 overhead before touching a 7018, and that is good advice.

Storage and Care

Low-hydrogen electrodes such as the 7018 must stay dry. Moisture pickup in the coating is exactly what causes hydrogen cracking, so a rod oven or a heat holder is not a luxury. If you have no oven, keep rods in their original packaging in a warm, dry place and never touch a rod’s coating with bare, damp fingers.

Stick welding rewards patience more than any other process. Clean the metal, check the polarity, match the rod, start in the middle of the range, hold your arc length to the rod diameter, and watch the puddle. Change one thing at a time. When you get a bead you like, write the settings on the scrap coupon, because next month you will not remember them, and Jody Collier’s whole Welding Tips and Tricks library is built on exactly that habit.

Flux Core, Gasless MIG, and Aluminum: The Tips Most Lists Forget

Most tip lists stop at MIG, TIG, and stick. The Welding Tips and Tricks library covers the four processes every serious shop runs: TIG (GTAW), MIG (GMAW), stick (SMAW), and flux core, self-shielded or gas-shielded. Run two well and you find work; run three and you choose your work.

Self-Shielded Flux Core: The Get-Work-Anywhere Process

Self-shielded flux-cored wire (FCAW-S) needs no shielding gas. The flux in the core does the shielding, so there are no bottles to haul and no cold-weather gas to freeze up. That makes it the go-to for structural steel, farm equipment, shipbuilding, and dirty outdoor jobs where wind would scatter a MIG blanket.

The biggest mistake is polarity. ESAB notes that MIG with solid wire normally runs DCEP (DC electrode positive), but some self-shielded flux-cored wires need DCEN (DC electrode negative), the opposite of MIG. Get it backwards and the wire melts before it reaches the work, giving severe spatter, an unstable arc, and a burnt-hair bead. Check the spool label before striking an arc; it is the final word.

Technique differs too. Hold the gun at a 10 to 20 degree drag angle, similar to stick, so the wire pushes the puddle along, and keep the wire close to the joint without touching it, the “iron on the nose” rule. Travel slower than on MIG: the bead is wider, the arc growls rather than hisses, and if you are rushing it, drop your amperage first.

Gas-Shielded Flux Core: Clean Beads Without the Gas Bill

Gas-shielded flux core (FCAW-G, often sold as MCAW) uses a 75/25 argon-CO2 blend. You get a smoother, cleaner bead with far less smoke than self-shielded wire, and it suits flat and horizontal work where appearance and low fume matter: finish welds on visible structural work, machine frames, powder-coated parts. Consistent travel speed gives a bead closer to MIG.

Aluminium MIG: A Different Metal Entirely

Aluminium has an oxide skin that reforms the instant you stop moving. Every tip below comes back to that single fact.

• Filler: 4043 for general work; 5356 for higher-strength joints or seawater service. The aluminium MIG welding guide compares them.
• Feeding: aluminium wire is soft and gummy. If the feeder will not push it, use a spool gun or push-pull feeder.
• Gun: bigger liner, bigger contact tip, a cable that will not twist. Match to wire size.
• Gas: pure argon, and lots of it. Aluminium needs a wide, dry blanket.
• Transfer: spray, at higher amperage and argon mixes that push a small droplet across the arc, suits heavier plate; globular, at lower amperage, suits thin material and feeding problems.
• Preparation: break the oxide with a dedicated stainless or aluminium brush right before welding. The aluminium cleaner guide covers the chemistry and safe method.
• Crater fill: never let the arc die on a puddle. A crater that solidifies in air traps hydrogen and leaves a rusty, porous crater. Fill it or run it off.

If you are doing aluminium flux welding on radiators, wheels, or castings, that is a different set of rules again. ESAB’s catalogue puts aluminium TIG in a separate module with a dedicated machine, showing how specialised it is. Do not expect to switch from steel to aluminium in a day.

Brazing, Coatings, and What You Should Not Weld

Brazing sits below the melting point of the base metal and needs filler that flows into the joint. It takes far less heat than welding, which matters on thin aluminium and brass. For brass and copper, clean the joint hard and use bronze filler, or it beads up like a stuck contact tip.

Do not weld galvanised, plated, or unknown-coated steel without thinking it through. Galvanising releases zinc fume, which causes metal fume fever, so the part must be stripped or properly vented. The OSHA welding, cutting and brazing guidance covers the hazard, and the same applies to lead paint, cadmium plating, and mystery coatings.

The Four-Process Comparison

Process	Best For	Setup	Filler Control	Skill Ceiling	Cost
MIG (GMAW)	Production steel, thin to medium plate	Low	Good	High	Low
TIG (GTAW)	Thin stainless, aluminium, precision	Medium	Excellent	Very high	Medium
Stick (SMAW)	Field repairs, structural, heavy plate	Lowest	Fair	Medium	Lowest
Flux Core (FCAW)	Structural steel, shipbuilding, farm work	Low	Good	Medium-high	Low

If you take one new skill from this section, make it flux core: no gas, works in the rain. Learn the polarity first, and your beads will look like you have done this for years.

Welding Safety and Fumes: The Part Most ‘Tips and Tricks’ Lists Skip

Most welding tips lists treat safety as a single line at the bottom. That is backwards. Safety is the reason you can still weld at sixty, and it is where a “trick” actually pays off: a fume extractor costs a fraction of what a career-ending diagnosis does.

Start with the part most people get wrong. Welding fume is not smoke. It is metal vapour: superheated metal particles that condensed into fine, respirable dust right at the arc. You cannot see all of it, and the fraction that hangs in the air longest is what you breathe most. What is in it depends entirely on what you are welding.

What Is Actually in the Fume

Welding mild steel gives you iron oxide fume, the least dangerous of the common fume types, but it still causes metal fume fever: the flu-like chills and ache welders complain about after a heavy day on thick plate.

Stainless and other chromium-bearing alloys are a different story. According to OSHA’s hexavalent chromium topic page, Cr(VI) is known to cause cancer, and it targets the respiratory system, kidneys, liver, skin and eyes. OSHA also identifies “hot work” such as welding stainless steel and other alloy steels containing chromium as a major source of worker exposure. The OSHA Welding, Cutting, and Brazing topic page links to Fact Sheet 3647, “Controlling Hazardous Fume and Gases during Welding”, the most practical single document OSHA publishes on the subject. If you read one safety document in your life, read that one.

Then there is manganese, which gets less attention than it deserves. NIOSH’s welding fume page states that welding fumes are composed of metals and that most contain a small percentage of manganese. Inhaled manganese bypasses the body’s normal defence mechanisms and can accumulate in the lungs, liver, kidneys and central nervous system. Prolonged exposure above 1 mg/m3 may lead to manganism, a Parkinsonian syndrome that mimics Parkinson’s disease. NIOSH also reports that welders exposed to low levels, under 0.2 mg/m3, performed more poorly on tests of brain function and motor skills. That last finding is the one that should worry you, because 0.2 mg/m3 is far below most people’s perception of “a dusty shop.”

Exposure Limits at a Glance

These are the reference numbers, straight from the source agencies.

Agency and Limit	Value	Notes
NIOSH REL (manganese)	1 mg/m3 (8-hour TWA)	Recommended exposure limit
NIOSH STEL (manganese)	3 mg/m3 (15-minute)	Short-term exposure limit
OSHA PEL (fume, total particulate)	5 mg/m3 (ceiling)	Ceiling, not an 8-hour average
ACGIH TLV (manganese)	0.02 mg/m3 respirable; 0.1 mg/m3 inhalable (TWA)	Far more protective than the PEL
NIOSH IDLH (manganese)	500 mg/m3	Immediately dangerous to life or health

Notice how far apart those numbers are. The OSHA permissible exposure limit for welding fume is five times higher than the NIOSH recommended limit for manganese, and the ACGIH threshold is stricter still. Your employer is bound by the OSHA number. Your lungs do not care. If you want a margin, aim for the ACGIH TLV, not the legal ceiling.

NIOSH also identifies welder’s anthrax, a rare occupational disease seen in metalworkers, and notes that confined space welding can significantly increase exposure to manganese fumes. A booth or a trailer is not a confined space, but a fuel tank, a pipe, a pit, or a ship’s hold absolutely is.

The Controls Hierarchy: What Actually Works

Noise control follows a strict order, and fume control should too. Work down the list, and only go to the next step when the one above it is not enough.

1. Source capture. The best control removes the fume at the arc before it reaches your breathing zone. An on-the-gun extraction nozzle or a strong arm-mounted hood over the work does more than a fan ever will. This is the single most effective upgrade you can make to a personal welding setup.
2. General ventilation. Cross ventilation and exhaust fans dilute the fume. Good, and necessary, but dilution alone will not keep a heavy stainless job safe.
3. Respiratory protection. Only as part of a written program with fit testing, medical clearance and training. A respirator on its own, with no program behind it, is not protection, it is a costume.
4. Fire and hot work control. Hot work permits, a designated fire watch, and clear access to extinguishers. Arc flash, sparks and slag travel further than anyone expects, including up through a floor grate.

Personal Protection and Shop Discipline

Get the helmet shade right for the process and amperage, and use a lens that is actually clear. A filthy, scratched auto-darkening lens at shade 8 is how welders end up with skin burns on the face and neck. Wear flame-resistant clothing, leather gloves, safety glasses under the helmet, and hearing protection when grinding or on a noisy site. Every grinder gets a guard, and every cylinder gets a cap on it when it is not in use.

One more thing that belongs here: aluminium is not a clean metal to weld either. The oxide layer and the clean-up process generate dust, and preparing aluminium properly for the joint is both a quality and a health question. Working through a full aluminium MIG setup guide is worth doing before you touch a spool gun in a small space.

Control the fume, respect the fire, and keep your eyes in the helmet. Everything else in this guide assumes you can still see and breathe at the end of the day.

The Ten Mistakes That Ruin More Welds Than Bad Machines

Here is the uncomfortable truth most shops will not say out loud: the machine is almost never the problem. A brand-new MIG on factory settings lays down the same mediocre bead as a twenty-year-old unit if the same ten habits are in charge. The troubleshooting culture built around Welding Tips and Tricks rests on this idea, and it is why the same three-minute fixes keep rescuing the same three-minute mistakes. Each item below follows one pattern: what you did, why it went wrong, and the fix you can apply at the bench tonight.

1. Wrong polarity. DCEN on a solid-wire MIG gun gives a cold, erratic arc and heavy spatter, while many self-shielded flux core wires run DCEN. One machine, two personalities, depending on the spool. Fix: read the polarity label and the wire spool spec before striking an arc, then set the machine to match. Thirty seconds of checking saves an afternoon of chasing a “broken” machine.
2. Welding dirty, oily, painted or rusted metal. Oil, paint and moisture burn off as gas in the puddle and come back as porosity. Rust and mill scale stop molten metal from wetting the base, so you get lack of fusion and a bead that peels off. Fix: grind or sand the joint back to bright metal. On aluminum, use a dedicated stainless bristle brush and an aluminum cleaner to strip the oxide layer rather than a shop rag.
3. Wrong wire stickout. Too long and you lose shielding coverage at the tip while the arc loses contact, cutting penetration and inviting porosity. Too short and you cannot see the joint. Fix: keep contact tip-to-work distance constant, roughly 3/8 to 1/2 inch for .030 wire, and put a strip of tape on the nozzle as a depth gauge so the distance repeats every time.
4. Travel speed too fast. This is the number one cause of cold, narrow, convex, under-penetrated beads, and it is usually mistaken for an amps problem. Fix: slow down and let the puddle lead the torch. If the bead suddenly goes wide and flat, you over-corrected in the other direction.
5. Changing wire feed speed and leaving voltage alone. On a constant-voltage machine the feeder sets amperage, but voltage still governs arc length, so the arc shortens out or burns at the tip. Fix: change one variable at a time and re-balance the other. Miller’s diagnostic is worth memorizing: if the arc stubs into the workpiece, increase voltage; if the arc is erratic and burns at the tip, reduce voltage.
6. Wrong shielding gas for the job. 100 percent CO2 penetrates well but throws more spatter and gives a less stable arc. A C25 blend gives a cleaner, quieter bead but less penetration on thick steel. Running the wrong blend makes you chase a problem that is not there. Fix: match gas to the job and verify the cylinder and flowmeter first, as covered in this guide to welding gases and cylinder supply. Remember that fume control is a regulatory expectation, not a courtesy: OSHA’s welding standards cover ventilation and fume controls.
7. Running TIG with weak gas flow or the wrong mix. TIG has no flux, so gas is the only protection the molten pool gets. Too little flow lets the atmosphere attack the puddle. Fix: set the flowmeter at the machine, not on the cylinder, usually 15 to 25 cfh of argon for ordinary steel and more for aluminum, then use helium or an argon/helium mix for aluminum. ESAB notes that inadequate shielding is easy to spot because it shows up as porosity and pinholes in the face and interior of the weld.
8. A poor ground clamp connection. A dirty, loose or poorly placed clamp makes the arc wander, flicker and buzz, and beginners blame the machine. Fix: clean the clamp jaw and the work surface, clamp directly to the part near the weld, and if the arc still acts up, try a second clamp.
9. Skipping interpass cleaning. Slag, spatter and oxidation left between passes stop the new puddle from wetting the previous one, which is lack of fusion in slow motion. Fix: chip and wire-brush every pass before you re-light, even on small jobs.
10. Ignoring heat input on thick or rigid plate. Too much heat in one place warps the part and distorts the joint; too little gives a cold, lazy bead. Fix: preheat the joint, use narrow stringer beads instead of a wide weave, tack the pieces to hold alignment, and let the plate cool between passes. On code work, AWS D1.1 and D1.2 spell out how procedure qualification and welding variables must be documented.

Two bonus mistakes. Arc-walking off the end of the bead: instead of filling the crater, most welders walk the torch off the end and hope. The crater cools as a shrinking puddle, and that is where hidden porosity starts. Fill it, then let it cool. Skipping the owner’s manual: Miller’s guidance is direct, read it first, because it holds vital information for safe and efficient operation. Every machine has a settings logic built into it, and the manual explains which one you are holding. It is also the fastest fix for a machine that seems to do nothing you asked.

Symptom to Cause to Fix

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix at the bench
Heavy spatter	Voltage too low, feed too high	Raise voltage slightly, trim feed speed
Undercut	Travel fast, amps low, arc long	Slow down, add slight hesitation or weave
Porosity / pinholes	Dirty metal, moisture, weak gas, long stickout	Clean joint, check flowmeter, shorten stickout
Bird-nesting	Feed speed too high for the amperage	Turn feed down or change to smaller wire
Stubbing	Voltage too low for the arc length	Increase voltage
Excessively wide bead	Travel too slow, feed too high	Speed up travel, trim wire feed
Burn-through	Too much heat for thin material	Lower amps, speed up, add backing strip
Lack of fusion	Travel too fast, dirty joint, low heat	Slow down, clean surface, add heat

Fix these ten habits and your bead quality changes on the first evening, no purchase required. If you want a process that tolerates beginner error while you unlearn them, stick welding’s real advantages are worth reading. Otherwise, the next section is about reading the weld itself, which is where this all comes together.

Reading the Weld: How to Know Your Machine Is Lying to You

The difference between a welder that improves and one that keeps buying bigger machines comes down to one skill: diagnosis. Settings charts can get you in the ballpark, but they will never tell you why a bead failed. The weld itself will. Your machine isn’t lying, it’s constantly giving you clues through its bead shape, arc sound, and overall look. The trick is learning to read them.

Knowing What “Good” Looks Like

Before you can spot a defect, you need a baseline. A solid weld should have proper penetration into the base metal, good tie-in at the toes, a consistent bead width, and a mostly flat profile with no excessive build up.

This skill is easiest to pick up starting off with Stick welding, as its flaws are slow, obvious, and easy to repeat. Once you learn to read a stick bead, those same habits transfer over to MIG and TIG without much effort.

What you see	What it means	Bench fix
Narrow bead that humps up over the joint	Travel speed too fast or amperage too low. This creates a narrow, convex bead with poor tie-in at the toes.	Slow your travel until the puddle follows you. If it stays narrow, add amps.
Flat but very wide and deep, edges look cooked	Travel speed too slow or amps too high. On thin material, this can quickly lead to burn-through.	Increase your travel speed and trim down your amperage.
Wire stabs into the puddle, arc spits and sputters	Voltage too low for your wire feed speed, or your wire feed is set too high.	Raise your voltage one click at a time, or turn your wire feed down. Check the Miller parameter guide for the correct balance.
Long, stretched spatter with a loose, turbulent puddle	Voltage too high, or shielding gas is inadequate. A high voltage arc loses control of the puddle and fails to consistently penetrate the base metal.	Lower your voltage. From there, check your gas flow and stickout.
Pin-holes and pockmarks in the bead face	Not enough shielding gas. Porosity from a lack of coverage is one of the few defects that can be spotted with the naked eye without destructive testing.	Check for gas leaks, increase flow, shorten your stickout, and clean your metal.
Groove cut along the toe of the bead	Undercut from too much travel speed, too little amperage, or too long of an arc.	Hesitate or weave slightly at the toes, slow your travel speed, or add a bit of heat.

Listen To The Arc

Your eyes aren’t your only diagnostic tool. For MIG, a correctly tuned arc gives off a steady, controlled hiss, almost like a steam leak. If you hear popping, buzzing, or chattering, your wire feed and voltage are disagreeing with each other. If the arc sounds smooth, but the bead still looks wrong, it’s time to look towards gas coverage or dirty metal. For more specifics, tuning MIG machine settings can be used as a reference for your process.

Stick welding takes this a step further. A proper short arc should have a smooth, frying sound. Shorten your arc and the pitch will rise, lengthen it and it will drop. This follows the short arc guidance from TWI. If that pitch is constantly wandering or turning harsh, your arc length is the culprit, not your amperage.

Training Your Diagnostic Eye

Reading a weld is a skill built through repetition, not talent. The most effective way to do this is by keeping things controlled and consistent.

1. Weeks 1 and 2: Pick one machine, one material, one material, and run flat stringers only. Run the same joint at least 30 times, changing exactly one variable each time. Write down what you changed and what happened.
2. Week 3: Add fillet welds to the mix. Run one flat, one horizontal, and one vertical-up fillet. The puddle will want to behave differently in every position, so pay extra attention to how you have to adjust your travel to compensate.
3. Week 4: Put it to the test. Run a V-groove butt or a 6-inch fillet on clean metal, then break it or run a bend check. Compare what looked good on the surface to what is actually fused on the inside.

The Coupon Habit

Don’t just toss your scrap. Keep the beads that teach you something, especially the ugly ones. Clip a small piece off of each coupon, scrub the edge, and write the recipe directly onto it with a marker: process, wire, gas, amps, volts, wire feed, travel speed, position, and thickness.

Ten labeled coupons will always be more useful than a half-filled notebook. When a weld goes wrong, you can hold up the one that worked next to your new bead and match your setup to it, changing only one variable at a time until you get back on track.

Watch Other People Weld

This is a habit that Jody Collier built his entire approach around. Stand next to a fabricator for an hour and pay attention to their gun angle, travel speed, and arc length far more than the knobs on their machine. Trade shows are great for this, but even online arc-shot videos are the cheapest way to get the same exposure.

It’s worth remembering that NIOSH, AWS, and The Fabricator all publish process-level guidance with the same goal: improving weld quality and technician skill, not just equipment. At the end of the day, the machine is rarely the problem. Learn to read the bead, and your existing welder becomes a far better welder overnight.

Building Your Own Welding Recipe Book and Taking the Next Step

Every technique from this guide comes down to one habit: find a setting that works, and write it down so you never have to hunt for it again. That single action is what separates a guesser from a welder who can walk up to a machine and lay down a solid bead on the first pass.

The Ten Checks Before You Strike an Arc

Before you chase perfection, lock in the fundamentals. Run through this checklist at the bench every time:

1. Start with clean metal. Grind off rust, paint, and mill scale before anything else.
2. Check polarity. Match it to your machine and your consumable spec.
3. Set amperage from thickness. A rough starting point of 1 amp per .001 inch can get you in the ballpark.
4. Set wire feed to match. Use feed speed multipliers to dial in with your amperage.
5. Tune voltage by ear and eye. Stubbing or an erratic arc are both strong indicators it’s off.
6. Control travel speed. More bad beads come from travel speed than any other variable.
7. Watch stickout. Keep it consistent from the toe of the joint all the way to the end of your bead.
8. Keep gas flowing. Check your flowmeter, and never assume your tank is full.
9. Change one variable at a time. This is the only way to know exactly what fixed a problem.
10. Log every good bead. Record material, thickness, gas, wire, and settings directly on the coupon itself.

Miller’s MIG parameter guide backs this up, noting that using the wire feed speed formula gives a repeatable starting point, and once you hit a bead you’re happy with, those numbers become your recipe. For a long term archive, a simple coupon book will outlast just about any app.

Diagnosis Beats Horsepower

A welder who can glance at a bad bead and say, “you’re running too fast, drop your travel speed and add 10 amps” is far more valuable on a job than one with the biggest machine in the shop. Jobs get fixed, not machines bought. The Fabricator has covered shop after shop where those diagnosticians are the ones keeping work moving.

This demand isn’t slowing down. The American Welding Society states that demand for skilled, qualified welders is at an all-time high, offering education in in-person, online instructor-led, and self-paced formats. From there, the credential ladder can open new doors:

• CWP (Certified Welder), along with AWS Welder Performance Qualification (WPQ) pathways, make up the entry point.
• CAWI (Certified AWS Welding Instructor) is ideal for those wanting to teach.
• CWI (Certified Welding Inspector), CWS (Certified Welding Specialist), and CWE (Certified Welding Engineer) open up inspection, procedure
  

  Frequently Asked Questions

  Who is Jody Collier and what is Welding Tips and Tricks?

  Jody Collier is a self-taught welder who built the Welding Tips and Tricks website (running since 2007 with more than 1,000 free articles) and a YouTube channel with well over a million subscribers. His stated approach is plain-spoken instruction with clear arc footage — ‘Clear Arc Shots & Plain Talk.’ He also founded Weldmonger, which sells TIG accessories and funds the free content.

  What are good starting MIG settings for 1/8-inch steel?

  Use about 125 amps as a starting point, since a common rule of thumb is 1 amp per .001 inch of material thickness. With .035-inch wire, Miller’s multiplier suggests roughly 200 inches per minute of wire feed, then adjust voltage until the arc is steady. Always verify on scrap of the same thickness and adjust for your gas and position.

  Why is my MIG weld spattering so much?

  The most common causes are voltage set too low for the wire feed speed, 100% CO2 gas instead of an argon blend, excessive stickout, and a dirty or rusty surface. Start by cleaning the metal, confirming DCEP polarity, and setting the stickout to roughly 3/8 to 1/2 inch for .030-inch wire, then fine-tune voltage while listening to the arc.

  Should I use 75/25 argon-CO2 mix or 100% CO2 for MIG?

  Use 100% CO2 for thick steel where you want maximum penetration and low cost, and expect more spatter and fume. Use an argon blend such as C25 for thinner material, cleaner beads, better arc stability and less spatter, as ESAB’s guidance on shielding gas selection explains.

  What gas flow rate do I need for TIG welding?

  For ordinary steel work, set the flowmeter around 15-25 cubic feet per hour and adjust to the cup size and nozzle-to-work distance. Aluminium needs more flow and usually a larger nozzle, and welding tube or pipe back-to-back calls for purging with the gas flow turned up and a restrictor at the outlet.

  Why is my tungsten contaminating the weld?

  The usual causes are grinding the tungsten along its length instead of around the circumference, touching the hot tip with dirty fingers or a dirty grinder wheel, or running too much amperage for the tungsten diameter. Grind a fresh point, clean the tip with a dedicated aluminium cleaner, and step down to a larger tungsten or more amperage range if the tip still discolors quickly.

  What is the difference between a 6013 and a 7018 electrode?

  E6013 is a fast, all-position electrode with easy arc characteristics that suits thin material, home projects and general repairs. E7018 is a low-hydrogen electrode with higher strength and better notch toughness, which makes it the standard for structural and code work where AWS D1.1 governs the procedure.

  How dangerous is welding fume, and what protection do I actually need?

  Welding fume is metal vapour whose composition depends on the material — OSHA states hexavalent chromium from welding stainless and chromium-bearing alloy steels is known to cause cancer, and NIOSH documents neurological effects from manganese in most welding fumes. At minimum you need local fume extraction or adequate booth ventilation, appropriate PPE and a respirator where ventilation is insufficient, plus hot work permits and a fire watch for hot work.

  How do I get rid of porosity in my welds?

  Porosity usually comes from contamination, moisture, inadequate shielding gas, or excessive stickout, so clean the joint and the surrounding metal, confirm gas flow, and reduce stickout to the recommended range for your wire size. If porosity persists on stainless or aluminium, check whether you need a back purge to displace the air inside the joint.

  How much practice does it take to get good at welding?

  Most welders improve fastest with short, frequent sessions — around 20 minutes a day of deliberate bead practice beats three hours once a week, because you are training hand memory rather than endurance. Keep a coupon book of your good settings and re-test them every few weeks so you can see your own progress and keep your best recipes.