Welding scraps...

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This may sound like a bit of a silly question...but, like I tell my students, "You'll never know the answer if you don't bother asking a question."  I'm new to welding and I have a little Lincoln flux core welder.  I'd like to get my hands on some scrap metal, or at least something cheap enough that I won't curse myself when I make an ugly weld (which will undoubtably do).  Any advise on where to get my hands on some cheap/free metal to mess around with?Thanks!
Reply:try a local fab shop.  The foreman might be willing to let you walk away wiht a few pieces of drop.  It never hurt to ask.Good luckCHRIS
Reply:Howdy!   I have had fantastic luck with the local high volume steel suppliers.  The trick, is to a) find the right guy to talk too, and always do your business with him, and b) don't be picky with what you want...   The local metals supplier I visit, has scraps from orders of specific sized pieces for customers.  Anything less then about 5 ft is scrap to these guys.  They make they're customers pay for the whole stick anyway.  Well, they bundle the scraps bye type i.e. tube, flat bar, pipe, angle...etc.  They bundle them bye weight, and you pay em roughly what the scrap yard does, and you save them the trip.  They put it on a pallet at the back of they're shop for guys like me.  I hardly ever nead pieces longer then they're scrap, so I'm a happy camper!!!  I usually get out of their with spending about 20 bucks for 200 lbs worth of quality steel.  Bits and pieces like I said, from 5' to 2'.  Happy welding!  Brian Lee  Sparkeee24
Reply:Howdy, another thing... a great practice Idea for ya, is to fillet weld in multiple passes a piece of angle iron.  I'm assuming your weldr is something like a 120-150 amp unit, so 1/8" to 3/16" thick of 1 1/2 bye 1 1/2 angle steel would be great.  Try running beads about 8" long untill you fill it up with weld metal.  Bye the time you get to the top, your beads shoulds be lookin pretty good.  Now, what WE did in shop class, was cut your now solid piece in half in two seperate places, and look at how each weld penetrated, look for porosity, inclusions of leftover slag welded over.  This is a great way for a beginner to get a feel for what works and what doesn;t.  Also, Miller's welding website has great info for the beginner also, and I highly recomend they're "GMAW" book, it's cheep, and has a bunch of great starting procedures. God luck!  Brian Lee  Sparkeee24
Reply:Thanks for all your replies.  This should get me started!