Vent: guy at the junkyard in Reno taught me more about welds in 10 minutes than 2 semesters of class
I was pulling a rear axle out of an old Ranger at the pick your part off Glendale when this older guy noticed my sad attempt at cutting a bracket with a Sawzall. He grabbed a cutoff wheel, showed me how he braces his off hand on the frame for steady pressure, and got through a 1/4 inch weld in maybe 40 seconds. Then he pointed at my beads on a patch panel I'd brought to practice on and said my heat was too cold so the metal was just sitting on top instead of biting in. I'd been running the same settings for 3 months because they worked on thin sheet, never thought to change for the thicker stuff. He didn't want anything, just walked back to his truck and kept pulling parts. I went home and redid my battery tray bracket that night and the difference was night and day. Any of you get lessons like that from random strangers at the yard?