B.B. wrote:


Questions I forgot to ask while I was the when stick welding, how
do you reliably start the arc without sticking? Currently I poke
straight at the plate and pull back to around a quarter inch then move
back down and lay the bead.

Back in high school my shop teacher told us
to "strike it like a match" At first it will
take an inch or so to do it consistently without
sticking. After you can do that, work on doing
it in a 1/4" or 1/2". You end up with sort of
a semicircular motion dipping the electrode down,
grazing the work and pulling the arc up to working
distance.