Can I get a critique on my welding, please?

You have good penetration, but you're welding like you were taught to stick weld. Rather than drag away from the puddle, push into it for a better looking weld.

 

Good advice, also if you don't have them already, get yourself some good heavy leather welding gloves, and an apron. That way you won't be fighting the sparks getting in places you don't want, you won't be feeling the heat on your hands and you can make a more continuous weld instead of starting and stoping on short welds like in your pictures. Also if your alittle shakey while welding, use one hand to weld and one to steady the other and just get comfortable, like sitting and watching tv.

 

I welded in a factory that made frames for Ford Explorers, and your welds look OK to me. No cold lap, appears you have good penetration...only advice I'd have, would be what the others have said, slow your travel speed just a touch,and sweep back before you end.

 

A pipe fitter at work once told me that it is better to fix an ugly weld with a grinder than to fix a broken pipe...

 

Lots of good tricks and tidbits here. That's exactly what I needed! Thanks!!

 

Lots of good answers to your question, without doing a weld sample and bend with your settings it's hard to say whether its strong or not, pretty isn't always everything though that's what seperates a pro from a hobbyist.

I teach welding for a living and by looking at your pictures I'd say your heat is good, the excess spatter is a result of too much voltage (I'm assuming your using an argon/co2 mix??) The easiest way to set up a mig welder is to use a 10:1 ratio with wire feed speed and voltage. An example is if you have 17 volts, then wire feed should be 170, this will get the machine in the "game" it is not recommended to run lower wire feed than voltage, as voltage is puddle fluidity, and wire speed is amperage (penetration). A good crisp bacon sound is what your after, if the puddle sounds raspy then it's high in voltage.

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the posts was THE most important thing with mig welding and that is keeping the wire on the LEADING edge of the puddle, I can see from your pictures that when you ended your bead, the wire is in the middle of the puddle, you can tell this as there will be a slight divet in the weld crater when you let go of the trigger (which is the last time the wire short circuited before finishing). MIG (GMAW) uses short circuit transfer meaning the wire dead shorts each and every time it contacts the base metal, that is where all the sparks come from, because it is a cold process failing to stay on the leading edge will result in cold lapping or lack of fusion (same thing) basically the weld puddle welds on top of itself and doesn't penetrate the base metal. I've seen fillet welds as beautiful as ever but the operator failed to stay on the leading edge and during a destructive examination the entire weld just peeled off.

Groove or butt welding is a lot more forgiving with this process, use a 1/8th gap for best results.

Keep it hot, stay on the front of the puddle and you'll be fine. Mig welding is an art and shouldn't be underestimated as just pull the trigger and go, it takes experience and practice to be successful in reading what the weld puddle is telling you.

Just my two cents.