So last year I picked up an A/C Arc 140 stick welder at Harbor Freight, but I just got a plug and wired it up last week. I've been practicing for a couple of hours today and a couple of hours yesterday, but other than that, I have no welding experience. I'd appreciate any criticism good or bad on my progress so far. This is using 1/16" 6011 electrodes at about 45 amps. In lieu of posting huge *** images, I made the smaller images links to the bigger images on my website. Click them to see more detail.

[img width=300 height=300]http://users.adelphia.net/~purecrxtasy/images/welding/weld3.jpg[/img][img width=300 height=300]http://users.adelphia.net/~purecrxtasy/images/welding/weld2.jpg[/img][img width=300 height=300]http://users.adelphia.net/~purecrxtasy/images/welding/weld1.jpg[/img]

 

looked like in one bead you would shove it in then forget then do it again. just be more consistant. if only going for looks even consistantly bad looks better but consistancy and speed and feed is the game with stick. looks good

 

Are you talking about the third one in the third pic? If so, that was a fluke. I sneezed when I was laying that one, but didn't stop. Kinda hard to see with your eyes closed.

 

yes i was. well good job then. i would have just pulled out.

 

Looks like you're stuck with the mindset of trying to travel at a consistent speed, rather than laying a consistent bead.

Forget about travel speed, and increase or decrease speed based on the bead width. Too fast makes it narrower. To slow makes it too wide and maybe will burn through on thin materials.