After trouble getting my welder up and running it's finally there and this is my first attempt at running a couple of beads any advance or pointers would be great
My welder doesn't really tell you the ampage it has 2 flick switches min-max and 1-2 and it was running on max 1 I'm a first time welder that's started a distance learning course and I'm getting ready to go to the training centre for the first time but don't really want to turn up never having picked up a torch so I was told to practice laying a bead on thick pieces then try joining some thinner pieces if this is wrong and you can point me in the right direction it would be great
"Thick and thin" is a sliding scale depending on the current rating of your welder.
A welder with 1 min/max and 2 min/max is probably not going to be much more than 120A.
You need to look at what the minimum and maximum current settings on your welder are and then you can roughly work out the steps I.e. If your welder does 30-90 amps in 4 steps then your steps would be something like 30, 50, 70 and 90.
That plate looks to be at least 10mm thick which means you'd need at least 170-180 amps to lay a nice bead.
So if your welder is suited to 1-3mm material then "thick" is 3mm and 10mm + is unachievable.
So that's roughly 30,66,99,130. You were using 66A which is why you are struggling.
Step down to some 3mm (which is still "thick") and give it another try.