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[chrisgixer]

Yep.

A spark landed on my head, and I could smell me burning.

You wait until a spark goes down the V of your shirt Chris. It's gets stuck when it reaches your belly and burns you, you take a sharp intake of breath, it drops to your waist and burns you, you take a sharp intake of breath, it drops to your pants level and burns you.   
When I did fabrication I used to go home from work with a shirt that resembled a tea bag. 

Oh, and you wait until a spark drops through your laces. 

I remember watching a lad welding the sills of his car in the apprentice garage. Sat on the floor cross legged a spark flew & landed between his legs. I've never seen anyone move as fast! 

I saw guy once, cutting a worn 3inch shaft out of a machine with an angle grinder. He hadn't noticed he'd put his leg near the spark stream which didn't take long to set light to his overalls. He was running around and flapping his leg all at the same time.

[YZ250]

Yep.

A spark landed on my head, and I could smell me burning.

You wait until a spark goes down the V of your shirt Chris. It's gets stuck when it reaches your belly and burns you, you take a sharp intake of breath, it drops to your waist and burns you, you take a sharp intake of breath, it drops to your pants level and burns you.   
When I did fabrication I used to go home from work with a shirt that resembled a tea bag. 

Oh, and you wait until a spark drops through your laces. 

I remember watching a lad welding the sills of his car in the apprentice garage. Sat on the floor cross legged a spark flew & landed between his legs. I've never seen anyone move as fast! 

One of the guys I worked with screamed in agony and was dancing about all over the place. He said he had burnt his helmet.......and he didn't mean his head. 

As a fabricator you use all types of welding equipment.....and occasionally horse-play kicks in. With Mig welders it was to let a length of wire out, very briefly touch it on earth until it glows and then burn something (TB would love that) or shove someone's tip right in to the anti-spatter pot and watch it fly out as they pulled the trigger. Very childish. 
With the Oxy/Acetylene bottles, we used to discharge neat acetylene in to the safety hand-rails and then plug the end with screwed up paper and light it. Ever heard a crow-scarer go off. 
If you want to annoy an arc welder, put a piece of paper on either side of his earth clamp and watch him struggle. 
Oh to be young again. 

[Marks DTM Calib]

I remember watching a lad welding the sills of his car in the apprentice garage. Sat on the floor cross legged a spark flew & landed between his legs. I've never seen anyone move as fast! 

Done that and bought the T-shirt when welding up knackered steam heat pipes on an old coach because it was needed and the testing was left to the last minute.

Said molten metal lump made it to an area you never want to have such a thing and 'holed' me.....rather hurt like hell!

That was with wearing a leather apron etc to

[Marks DTM Calib]

And Chris, you need to improve your 'penetration'.....

[Kevin Wood]

And Chris, you need to improve your 'penetration'.....

Once he's stopped thinking about where that blob of weld went, I'm sure he'll be in a better frame of mind for that. 

[Nick W]

Those examples are painful, but nothing beats welding spatter sizzling in your ear. Hearing it doing the damage with excruciating clarity makes it much worse.

[chrisgixer]

And Chris, you need to improve your 'penetration'.....

Once he's stopped thinking about where that blob of weld went, I'm sure he'll be in a better frame of mind for that. 

The area between 3oclock and 6oclock ? Ignore the rest that was Fiddling with a faulty welder.

I presume move the torch slower accross the job?

I noticed that it was quite difficult to see the rest of the job through the mask. I want bit less dark to see a bit further afield so I can get the line of the circle lined up. If that makes sense.
The mask is on the lightest setting, although I don't want to go blind obviously.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Shade 9 should be about right for the max power levels you can get (normaly the lowest setting on most helmets), you might want to try some illumination on the weld piece but avoid lighting behind you as it lights the inside of the mask.

Is the wire feed a bit quick?

Work with a little more distance from the piece (circa 10mm ish) to get the current up a bit and watch the weld pool, feed the wire into the front edge of this.

[henryd]

Those examples are painful, but nothing beats welding spatter sizzling in your ear. Hearing it doing the damage with excruciating clarity makes it much worse.

+1,that is a total bastard after your ear appears to have exploded

[chrisgixer]

Shade 9 should be about right for the max power levels you can get (normaly the lowest setting on most helmets), you might want to try some illumination on the weld piece but avoid lighting behind you as it lights the inside of the mask.

Is the wire feed a bit quick?

Work with a little more distance from the piece (circa 10mm ish) to get the current up a bit and watch the weld pool, feed the wire into the front edge of this.

Hmmm, I'm having trouble seeing to that level of detail tbh. The mask is set to 9. Nothing lighter available.

Maybe slow the wire speed as you suggest, then move the torch slower to match...? It feels a bit frantic, which might be a legacy of the previously faulty switch.

[aaronjb]

Presume you've read all this and watched the videos, used the calculators etc, Chris? http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/learning-mig.htm

[chrisgixer]

Presume you've read all this and watched the videos, used the calculators etc, Chris? http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/learning-mig.htm

Woo, didn't know what to do with my other hand until I saw that.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I noticed that it was quite difficult to see the rest of the job through the mask. I want bit less dark to see a bit further afield so I can get the line of the circle lined up. If that makes sense.
The mask is on the lightest setting, although I don't want to go blind obviously.

A few years ago I worked in Nairobi, Kenya and now and again used to get the odd welding jobs done in a roadside welding shop.

The welder was in his sixties and his eyes were opaque/cloudy.    The reason became apparent when watching him at work, as he didn't use a mask or goggles and would start the weld and then look away!!     

His work was good though! 

[YZ250]

Chris, our training school teaches the following method:

Sorry, it's a long one. 

Get a sheet of 1-1.5mm CLEAN mild steel, cut it in to squares of about 4", make sure the clamp has a good connection to either a metal workbench or one of the bits of steel, overlap a couple of the squares, tack the overlap at both ends and then practice a short weld. You should be able to set the heat and wire speed so that you hear a constant crisp crackle and have a molten pool that you can move along with control. To start with, you may benefit from resting the side of your hand on the workbench so that you have control over the distance of the nozzle shroud from the workpiece. Check the penetration on the back of the square plate. When you get to the stage of decent penetration, you can practice butting the two pieces of steel together. Same principle, with a tack at both ends, but you won't have the overlap to protect you from any over-heat and you will soon learn about blow-holes and how to fill them.

DO NOT practice on irregular thickness steels or old rusty bits of steel. To get your confidence up and the best way to set the welder up is to use only clean thin mild steel. You mention not being able to see in detail when welding. I was old school and we used hand held shields until the reactor lens shields came in a few years back. Up to that point, you had to learn how to nod the helmet down once you'd got the shroud over the work-piece and were ready to weld if you wanted to use the helmet type mask, something us hand held users didn't immediately adapt to. 
Keep practicing, on thin clean mild steel, and you will get there.  With clean material and a decent clean clamping position, you will see how easy the welder is to set up. 
If you practice on any old scrap, especially rusty steel, even the best of us would end up with a lumpy mess. 

A little warning which may be obvious. Beware of the glare as even short flashes within eye-sight will give you arc-eye. It is not nice, as anyone who's had it will tell you. Don't watch or look in the direction of anybody else welding without a mask on, as this is probably one of the surest ways to get it. We used to weld the bangers up using our hand as a shield while tacking, another sure way to get arc-eye. You only get one pair of eyes, so look after them. 

Good luck. 

[Kevin Wood]

Yep, that's pretty much what we did on the evening course I attended. Well worth the £80 it cost. I think I went through that cost in materials and consumables each week.