for one, balance is too high. It's a clean piece of aluminum....doesn't require a lot of cleaning action. I try to leave mine as low as possible for what I'm working on so more of my heat is going into the work, not the tungsten. Temperature and amount of filler are going to be the big things to determine bead size. You will notice if you keep the same amps on a row of dimes that the bead starts off a little high and cold, as the piece heats up the bead flattens out and washes further out from the center and will get wider as you go along. Looking for consistency which is why you use the pedal to decrease amps as the piece heats up and you can keep the bead width consistent. Sharpen to a point then put a small land on the end for aluminum. Otherwise tungsten does funny things with AC and a sharp point at any appreciable amount of amperage