<font color=blue>I learned to weld on gas, then stick, then MIG. I like gas the best, just because it seems like art,</font color=blue>
That's the path I took, well, kinda, sorta./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
Actually the first thing I welded was lead. I worked for the telco and back then we used lead for closures. If you want some pressure have a prestolite torch, a cylinder thirty inches long, ten inches in diameter, a days work forming it into place, and a couple of thousand copper wires inside protected only by paper insulation and some cotton wrapping from the heat. Now solder it together along a seam without setting your livlihood on fire twenty feet in the air with a stiff breeze blowing......those were the good old days.......
The problem I have heliarcing aluminum is I revert back to watching for the flow of the metal like I did with the lead.
Like David I love gas welding. My dad had insisted that I learn to weld if I was going to keep coming up with projects for him to weld up. Every week end it seems I'd come in with a project all cut out and fitted. He'd glue it together.
He started me welding on with an old Forney A/C machine putting together galvanized thin wall tubing. You learn to weld purely by faith. If you see a puddle you're nanno seconds from seeing your boots through the material you're working on.
I decided to use up some of the GI Bill on welding classes. They started me out on gas welding. Like David says, it's art. But probably the best thing about starting with the gas is you learn the process. You get to see what happens when it's just heat and material dancing at your command. After that when using any other welding process when you have a problem you can think back to the basics and figure out what's going wrong and then adjust accordingly.
I think the most fun is welding aluminum with the heliarc. It's clean and neat and everything works slower so you have time to appreciate the moment.
I make my living welding. But I think it'd be neat if everyone knew how to do it. The pleasure of making things is something so special everyone deserves equal opportunities at it.