Excellent points. I forgot about the foot pedal. So when you're running pedal, is the setting the base current, and when you step on the pedal the current increases, or do you set the pedal at some position (off, middle or floored) and then set the current? I suppose it's the latter.

Picked up some cutoff pieces of 16 ga or thereabouts steel scraps at the local metal supplier to practice on first. And I have plenty of aluminum and might work on that as Jody suggests doing to learn how to get the hang TIGing. Looking forward to this. Been welding MIG for 10 years and stick for longer than that. Moving from stick to MIG was a life-changing experience. I expect having full control of heat, metal deposition and travel speed with TIG will be equally life-changing.