advise on my welds

[jamesmacc]

hi all,
i learned to mig weld about 5 years ago in the garage i worked at on a very expensive mig that was set up by a pro. i did a few jobs a month like exhaust reapirs or cutting out rust and patching it up. i ended leaving the garage and didnt weld for about 2 years.
i bought my own mightymig 130 and used the disposable argon/co2 mix bottles for small jobs, i was able to get fairly nice looking welds but i could only ever weld pulling the torch. after going through about 20 bottles i decided to hire a bottle from air products. im using cougar 15 with 0.8mm wire. i am now trying to weld forward as im told this penitrates better.
my problem now is that my welds go very flat even with my welder on the lowest setting. is there something im doing wrong? here are a few pictures of some welds using my new set up
this is 1.5mm stainless steel with welder on various different powers. advise would be great,
james

 

[jamesmacc]

i have just noticed i have this in the wrong section, can one of the moderators please move it to learning mig welding section please

 

[jamesmacc]

i found a video on youtube were the man was doing lots of small welds on 1.5mm pipe to stop it blowing through. i tried welding 3mm steel and the welds were far better, not as flat and more shape to them. i tried tacking 2 pieces of 1.5mm together and then doing lots of little welds like the video on youtube and im fairly happy with the result. i will post up pictures soon. what do most people use for grinding down welds and polishing them up so they are seamless.
cheers, james

 

[Wozzaaah]

First sign of madness you know.

Welcome to the forum James.
Those welds don't look too bad at all, certainly plenty good enough for an exhaust anyway.
The best thing for dressing welds is an angle grinder and a flap disc, they remove the excess very quickly and leave a much better finish than normal abrasive discs. You can get them in various grits so can get most of the excess off with a coarse one then finish up with a fine one.
The technique you're describing is commonly known as the 'thin metal technique' on here and is basically spot welds overlapping each other. Make a spot, allow to cool slightly then another overlapping the first and so on. Very good for limiting the amount of heat you put into the work.

 

[jamesmacc]

thanks for the info, i will order some disks and see how good they are.
James