Well judging his method (especially with that machine) and the sort of job he's doing, the word amateur really doesn't seem good enough. Cowboy barely works actually. Worrying to think that anything safety related relies on his welding.
i'm starting to get a feel for what these narrow boat welders are like. haveing just done first full serious attack at repairing one. the owner came down to see how we were getting on with it two weeks after he droped it off. he looked a bit miffed when he saw it wasent in the tempoary workshop but on the trailer it arrived on that turned to shock when he saw it was done. blasted, plated, painted loaded up and ready to go.
but was no ****** about with the kit, temp workshop had rubbish power supply so rocking the genset running a pair of big migs with watercoolers ( 450A and 525A ) running 1.0 and 1.2 mm wire . with a 70A plasma for most of the cutting duties. 130 cfm road compressor takeing care of the air ( needed a bigger one really so only on 6mm nossel for blasting )
really thats what i'd call the minumum level of kit for takeing on such jobs and doing them in a resonable time Mod:language edit
Sardine - if he's doing one second bursts then he doesn't know what he's doing. As a technique it could be (arguably) acceptable on a vertical butt, when timed right, but in fact that really requires a low voltage (like 17v, ish) for almost any thickness of steel above about 5mm (although that can depend on the weld set you're using). For any other position one second tacks are entirely unacceptable except on thin material with a crap weld set and the wrong wire.
A butt weld can be prepped only by leaving a gap. If there's no gap it's wrong unless you're upping the volts for good pen. Not my favourite technique as you can end up with the plates pulling and warping.