Day Six of TIG Welding

Below is a picture of my latest welding sample alongside last week's atrocity. In these exercises I'm welding with the metal in the vertical position and welding from bottom to top (vertical up). The weld on the left is horrible. The weld on the right, my latest, looks a lot better. It's amazing what changing to a thicker metal can do to help a novice welding student. It's still not nearly good enough, but it looks like I'm making progress. The first sample was done on thinner aluminum (0.0625"= 1/16" = 1.5875mm). The instructor recommended trying to weld on thicker stock. The new weld is on 0.125"(1/8" = 3.175mm) aluminum. I think it's easier, in this case, to TIG weld on the thicker aluminum because you have more time to get your heat (amperage) right before you melt a hole in your work. I'm also getting more used to doing several important things at once. Like using the foot control for the amperage, feeding the filler rod with my left hand and moving the torch with my right hand. I hope someday I'll have something really smart to say about welding, but that's it for now.