16 ga steel settings?

[Rambozo]

So I should have gapped the joint, rather than just beveling and fixing with no gap? But what about the filler balling before I can get it close enough, bigger filler?

The gap will let you see that you are getting all the way through. Without a gap, if the lands are thin enough, you can just melt through with a little more power, but you will not be able to tell that you got full penetration unless you inspect from the other side. By having a gap and being able to see the inner walls breakdown, you know you are all the way just from what you see on the outside.

As far as the filler balling up, there are so many things that can cause that, too small for the amount of power, holding the rod too close to the arc while waiting to dip, torch angle and direction, travel speed, and probably more that I'm forgetting. Ideally you want to keep the rod inside the argon cone, but away from the arc, you can also rest it on the base metal between dips to help draw some heat out, then sorta scoot it into the puddle as needed. Mostly it just takes practice to read what is going on and make adjustments. I would say that for your edge welds, 1/16 is about as big as you would want to go. .040" might be a little better. For a 13 year break, it looks like it's coming back pretty fast. By the time you got to that third bead, it looks like you pretty much have it down.

[Trip59]

I think the most challenging part is remembering. Feel like an idiot some of the time, I just have to remind myself that the last time I turned a TIG machine on was July of 98 and it's been a busy few years since that.

Thinking now, it may have been torch angle contributing to it, I was having a bit of a time with the monster of a handle. I think a nice WP9 or WP20 is going to be the next purchase I make once I can afford it.

Overall, the motion came back a lot quicker than I thought it would, I was overall happy with appearance on what I did yesterday, considering I did half while wrestling the cable before I remembered why I built my cart the way I did... added a hanger and supported the cable at table height rather than having it hang off the edge. Made it a bit easier.

Thanks for the advice!