I'm a noob, that just bought a rig, whats the first thing I should do?

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I'd love to take a class but I am going to school right now for another discipline and this is more to support my offroad hobby. I'd love to be able to afford some welding classes but its just not in the budget at the moment.I have a 220v Lincoln MIG. No gas yet but its coming.I realize it will be a long learning process, and am wondering where I should focus my efforts.
Reply:Start with the basics.    While a class will usually get  you where you want to go the fastest, and prevent you from leaning bad habits, it's certainly possible to learn the basics of mig on your own.Here's what we have students do at the tech school. Get yourself at least a full stick of 1/8" flat stock, 2"-3" wide and cut it into a bunch of 6" lengths, maybe 6-10' of 3/8" thick, the same width cut to the same 6" long pieces, along with a few feet of 2-3" 1/4" or heavier angle iron. The angle iron will give you something to run basic bead work on without burning up tons of practice stock, and the 1/8" flat will give you something to prefect and work on joints. The 3/8" will allow you to eventually do bevel buts and bend them to get an idea just how well you did. ( Note: the guys go thru a LOT of material in the class where I'm at, to learn the basics of mig in all positions. Just the cost of the material alone will pretty much cover the class. This is especially true with 3/8" bevel buts where they can spend an entire class burning up a full 20'+ stick trying to get their penetration down on their root passes. Add in gas, wire, electric not to mention the instruction and the class itself is stupid cheap. If you want to do this right, expect to spend a few hundred in materials, wire and gas minimum. )Basics...Start with the angle iron, or a chunk of heavy flat plate. Start running beads from one side to the other. After you can consistently run nice beads the full length of the 12" piece, then fill in between the beads overlapping the 1st one by 1/2. The idea is to fill the whole piece up eventually. It's boring and repetitive, but it will allow you to get the basic motions down and not burn up all your 1/8" material. Here's the idea. for flat it helps to tack a couple of scraps on to the angle as "feet" to keep the piece upright in a V shape. After you are consistently laying nice beads, you can move on to the 1/8" ( don't toss the angle or plate you've been using, you'll do the same things again when you get to horizontal and the other positions.) Start with a lap joint. when you get the lap down, then you'll do a T, followed by an outside corner and finally a but joint. Depending on the class and materials available, some times we have students do the 3/8" thick bevel buts when they finish all the joints in one position, and some times they do them all at the very end. I'd suggest waiting until the end so you get as much practice as possible. the cost of F'ing up 3/8" adds up FAST!Next you do all the same stuff over again for horizontal, then vertical and finally overhead. We have the students get signed off on each joint and they can't move on until they get the previous ones down, usually needing to do at least 2-3 back to back consistently to get signed off.Use the settings suggested on your machine, and post up picts along with all the specs and we can try to help you thru this. It's a lot harder since many times it's easier to do this while watching someone weld. Don't be  in a rush. While it's possible for a student to do all the basic mig positions in one semesters class with intensive work, most take 2 to get thru mig. Don't expect to go spend an hour learning and go jump in on major projects.Push the bead if using gas, drag if using FC wire. Go slow. Learn to watch the puddle. Most guys can get by doing timing patterns on flat/horizontal, but you won't get past that until you learn to read the puddle and manipulate it. This is usually what separates those who can weld, from thos who just squirt metal at a project. As far as gun motions, it varies. for laps and outside corners I usually jsut do straight stringers with little to no motion. T's and fill passes on bevels, I'll usually use a bit of a side to side motion, some like to do circles, some C's, some figure 8's... just depends what works for you. I usually suggest starting out with just a straight bead, no motion to keep things simple. The only time I recommend a circular motion is when students simply can't slow down enough.Good luck and post up some picts of your attempts and we'll help you learn what to look for and what to work on..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan