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Just welded the flange piece onto another section of thin wall tube and went for better penetration this time. The picture isn't the best but you can see better penetration this time, I set the purge up with the inlet at the bottom and angled the pipe up and made quite a few holes at the exit.
backpurge
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You need to get used to putting a bit more filler wire in. Try counting in your head to get a regular feed going and stick to this, then all you do is alter your deposition rate by how far you push the filler into the weld pool on each dip, eventually you will do this as second nature without thinking about it, you are getting there it's just down to practise. Don't forget some of the guys on here will have served 4 or 5 year apprenticeship followed by decades of experience so don't get disheartened if you don't get it overnight.
I'd definitely take Delgado up on his kind offer, he will get you sorted in no time at all
I'd definitely take Delgado up on his kind offer, he will get you sorted in no time at all
Thanks backpurge. I intend on taking delgado up on his kind offer of some help. I'm not getting disheartened with it, I will just keep practicing until I get there, it is just useful to get some feedback and tips from people like yourself who are more experienced. Thanks again
Couple more welds today on another flange joining to the other flange. I bought a large gas lens, 1/2" ceramic and a flexible torch head and the coverage is much better and the head is a lot easier to manipulate. 1mm filler used on this, round about 35amps although it looks as though it may have been a bit hot in a few places or is that just me?
You're welcome!
As Backpurge said, it's all a question of practise, and the thin stuff's always trickier. I've even seen some very good pipe welders struggle with thin stainless just because they were used to always welding thicker pipe.
Keep posting up the fotos!
Bit more progress today after having to renew the argon bottle. Firstly welded a bend onto the rear exhaust silencer. The pipe is 3" but the silencer inlet was larger than 3" so that you can slide the pipe in but there was a reasonable gap between the 3" tube and silencer tube so I used 1.6mm filler and roughly 45 amps on this to bridge it. I then had to weld the flange onto the bottom of this bend so I mated up one of the straight bits of pipe I welded to take some of the heat away from the flange to stop it warping and also to allow me to purge it easier at the bottom. Third picture is of the silencer in situ. Next picture is of the welded flange, this was a bit of a pain to weld especially in one place because of the silencer being in the way. I remembered I had a flat end cap so I put that on the torch to free up a bit more space but was still a pain in the ar*e, as a result the welds weren't as consistent as I would have liked. Finally the last picture is a close up of the join from the tube to silencer.
Thanks phataz although far from amazing I think! Just started my 3rd bottle of argon and this is the first proper thing I have welded so I am reasonably happy at the moment how it is going but will just keep practicing. Just need to practice more learning on parts that I am not actually building for a purpose. I found that the flexi head torch and large ceramic cup and gas lens helped a lot so if there is anything to take from this thread then that may be it. I also want to look at getting a flexible torch cable/feed because the r-tec one I have is not flexible and in comparison to a flexible one I tried there is a massive difference with how you can move the torch.
Looking good! Welding thin SS with a gap is never easy, and it looks like you've not done too bad a job of it. Your fillet still needs a bit of work though, but don't worry you'll get there in the end. I remember when I was first learning to TIG, would spend all day welding and get some reasonable beads, then come back the next day and it was like I was starting again from scratch. 
