I figured I would give an update. Yesterday a friend of mine came up from Wichita KS. He is an aircraft parts welder at a fab shop. He welds everything from Aluminum to stainless to titanium 8+ hours a day. He brought with him the gas lens/cup setup he welds with daily. He uses a standard small diameter gas lens with a 10 cup that has another small screen at the very end of the cup. I couldn't find a 10 cup for the small diameter gas lens so he is going to find out where his shop buys them. The small screen in the end they make in house so he is going to see about buying a few extra for me. He made some small gas flow adjustments and then he got to welding. The cup change definitely helped. He also pointed out that I was trying to move too fast with too much heat. He showed me to slow down and use less amps and the results definitely improved from that. The last thing he mentioned was that the weld puddle was "dancing around" a bit. He said he see's it here and there and its usually related to material that isn't 100% pure stainless. The 321 that they normally use he said welds nicer, but obviously on this project it was out of the budget.

In the end he made some incredible looking welds and my welds weld from functional but butt ugly to functional and presentable. I'm still in need of more practice to make them really start looking pretty.