What's wrong with my welding??

[Unlikely Hero]

Crap ok ok I need to get the gas kit for it, I'll do that this week. Sure will beat having to grind down every weld. I'm going to my garage later today and see exactly what welder it is. As for the bend, I couldn't find anything that's 1.5" thats bent that tight.
=Jason-

[JET]

No, that doesn't look like a weld without the gas on. If you forget to turn the gas on you get a ton of porosity in the welds. That is little air pockets all over so you welds look like swiss cheese. His welds aren't like that, just a ton of splatter.

Fusion, I will toss you an email when I upgrade. It will probably be about 2-3 months.

[Matt D.]

Some advice for starting out... When I learned to weld in high school we had to first learn out to weld a bead. We started with stick welding, both AC and DC. Once we were good at that we had to weld a 2"x2" pad of beads next to eachother, one layer going one way and the next layer going perpendicular. 3 or 4 layers, then the teacher took the pad to the chop saw and cut it up to see how many pockets were in it. We had to do the same for MIG as well.

Just get yourself a flag piece of metal and start running beads. Once you're good with that, tack another piece at a 90 degree angle and learn to run beads along that. From there, learn to do a butt weld, putting the straight edges of two pieces together and running a bead along the seam to join them. From there just try joining pieces of metal in any way possible. But remember, being able to run a good bead is the foundation of all of your welding. If you can't do that on a flat piece of metal, you're not going to be able to weld anything else properly.

[Pushit2.0]

looks good, I wish I could weld like that...

[niterydr]

looks good, I wish I could weld like that...

your an asshole!

Like mentioned lots of splatter, and I would also suggest practicing on scrap metal.
Where the hell is Raptor on this one?
I am by no means a welding expert, but I do know practice does make perfect when it comes to welding (or the more you do it, the better chances of you getting better, unless you are doing something fundamentally wrong).

[Jakey]

Definitely make sure you don't have a fan blowing on you when you weld either. I was welding at work the other day and couldn't figure out why the hell I couldn't get any decent beads to lay. Sure enough, I totally blanked out and forgot I had a barn fan blowing straight on me.

[Unlikely Hero]

Yea I know about the wind. Did some welding today much better. I'll post some pics of it when I ever remember to bring my camera. They are much better, I find if I keep my hand on something my beads are much straighter and nicer. I'll post a pic later and tell me what else I need work on.
=Jason-