need some welding help/advise Options

[Jeroen]

ok... having some trouble making nice welds
well, partially

below is a pic of a recent weld
usually, I can get a nice weld going. good penetration etc.
and then out of the blue, it'll start sputtering and globs of weld start to stack making thick ugly welds

what's my problem?
- hand/eye coordination
- wire speed
- amp setting

any tips/pointers?
please help me out... I hate the look of ugly welds and it's a huge PITA to grind 'm out and start over

[scotty b]

Amperage looks O.K. from pic, clean clean clean. Dirty metal, rusty metal does not weld well at all. (unless stick welding) clean BOTH sides of the metal if at all possible. Depending on the welder, some of the cheaper machines have a coller that simply slides on (as opposed to threading on) and what happens quite often is that as you weld, the collar tends to slip further down the torch head causing the shielding gas to disperse before reaching the weld. Also make certain there is no breeze to blow the gas away, it doesn't take much. 15 C.F.M. is plenty of flow for welding.