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Ah you never did gas welding then ;)
EDIT Did you find better quality machines made the welding easier?
lynx-
I've gas welded brass before, it was with a fluxer and torch, proper welding with a bead and pooling parent material etc. I do alot of brass tig'ing usually. Thought I'd try it with a torch and it worked really nicely with the gas fluxer going. Ended up with a nice bead around a sphere.
Would like to try gas welding aluminium though. Not as noisy as tig'ing it! -
I can copper/silver braze, i find it fairly easy actually, but I wouldn’t say I’m any good yet. Tig is a different beast though.
I’ll be honest I’ve only really used the ESAB and Jasic machines the college have and they are great as far as I can tell. I bought a secondhand ESAB mig welder for everyday bits due to this and I love it.
Fishfabs
LeChef
I’m currently on a welding course here is Wales. I took to Mig like a duck to water but Tig took me much longer to get a hold of.
First of all two hands is always going to be trickier than one. I found it difficult to get used to feeding the rod in consistently, but practice and a decent set of Tig gloves helped.
I guess the main thing I had to learn was understanding and management of the weld puddle. Learning how is moves and how it needs to be maintained and worked is key. I found keeping a consistent distance of the electrode from the puddle and good torch handling really important to get good welds.
In terms of settings I find that 90-95 on a 2.4mm rod turns out nice good looking welds on 3-5mm plate. But it really depends on your setup and what you’re welding.
Overall, practice, practice, youtube, practice.
Edit* I forgot to say that I’ve found that the importance of a sharp, clean tungsten is paramount for effective arc control. Being able to rely on a consistent steady arc pushing and manipulating the puddle is super important.