I had a shop teacher way back then teach a one-class lesson on welding that included a 10 minute talk on stick welding, 20 minutes of waiting line for the ONE welder they had, and a 20 second try at it. That teacher said you moved the stick in small circles in a "stirring motion" to fuse the metal together. I was trying that same "stirring motion" and spreading my heat out to much and getting blobs instead of beads, and insufficiant heat to make anything reliably stick to anything else. Amazing what dispelling that faulty info did. I welded together a steel bumper assembly tonight, and when I wacked it with a hammer, I made a dimple in the metal next to the weld, and the weld did not fall apart
Interestingly the NASA weld inspector said the HF 90 amp flux core welder was a reasonably good little welder so long as you throw away the crap wire it comes with, (I told him what welder I had, and he came carrying a spool of Lincoln flux core wire.) and you use it for what it's meant for, light duty welding, mostly on material 3/16th thick or less. He said most of the bad welds he has seen from those machines boiled down to either bad terchnique, bad welding wire, or asking this chihuahua sized welder to do a pitt bull sized job.
Best part is all this expert assistance cost me was $15.00 for a small spool of Lincoln wire, a case of beer, and one of my wife's home cooked dinners. The deal doesn't get much better than that.
