Ive never claimed to be a welding expert, far from it,
yet I can make solid welds, but IM not as skilled as some guys 1/2 my age, or nearly as skilled as id like to be but I do practice, read and learn all I can from more experienced welders,while I might not be as skilled as some guys are with a TIG WELDER,Ive come to see it as the better welder in many cases than doing the job with ARC or even MIG in some cases, true its at times slower, but IM rarely in a huge rush. I started out with oxy-acetylene welding many years ago, gradually I acquired ARC, MIG and TIG welders in my shop.
Ive used all four for years, but the oxy-acetylene welding and TIG welding have always seemed at least to me to be the best systems and get the best results.
Ive trained many guys to weld several different ways and do so rather well over the years, and maybe its because of all the years I spent working with an oxy-acetylene welding torch, but for me,it is just not a huge jump from that skill to use of a TIG welder in my opinion,
because in both types of welding the heat source is adjustable and separate from the material feed process, but Ive found that many guys find arc and MIG to be far faster to learn, while I found that its oxy-acetylene welding and TIG that are the easier skills to become reasonably proficient at??
Ive noticed that teaching the skills to correctly use oxy-acetylene welding and TIG welding are almost always harder for the new guys to pick-up and the concept of forming a puddle of molten metal , and controlling its size and heat and flowing the edges into the surrounding metal seems to be hard for some to grasp, especially if they need to coordinate their foot movements on a pedal, to control the torch heat, the torch angle and distance and adding a fill material, its almost pathetic at times, yes most guys do eventually gain the skills but you would think I was asking them to juggle 5 pool balls, blind folded, while riding a unicycle backwards, on a tight rope, strung over a pit of alligators ,after watching some guys try to control a tig welding torch.

HOW ABOUT YOU GENTLEMEN???
obviously if you've only tried mig or arc welding you don,t have a good reference, to judge but for those that have used all four types of welding equipment, whats your opinion?

never used the pedal type tig welders the ones we got are all 1 ore 2 button style torches
i am not a prof welder but just a maintenance tech in a food plant (so everything is SS)
an there i learn 4-5 guys a year to tigweld a bit
it takes for the quickest ones 2-3 day to some dessent welding an the most it takes the 5 days
i had one guy that needed 2 weeks but in the end i got it right also
the biggest prob is the concept of forming a puddle of molten metal once they understand that i go a step further =the change the torch angle (i use the winter /summer sun angle to explan the principe)
and the distance from the point to the to weld parts also chance the puddle
i let the try without feeding materials
then i ad the factor feeding materials and make them understand that it act like adding extra tickness to the to weld part


if i got a guy that can oxy-acetylene weld the tig is easy to learn
i find oxy-acetylene welding the hardest to learn an to controle
mig /mag and arc i find easyer
and for all a right setup (amps and feed ) makes it way easyer to weld

what do influence the puddle size?
material - thickness - underground-ambiant temp-torche angle/distance -welding tip grinding angle-
amps-adding material -speed- flat ore angled -up or flat and probable a few others

tig welding is my favorit style of welding it is clean strong and need the least of work after the weld is done

I find stick welding in the rain the most satisfying, especially BareFoot!!When you need to bridge a big gap and when the look does'nt matter, stick is the way to go...But I like your Tig/Mig setup, Need to come over and get me some more practice..