They charged you $15 for that scrap steel? Hmmm. Try googling scrap steel prices. Or you can phone scrap metal yards and see what they'll give you per ton if they are buying. Tell them you have a trailer load of old structural steel. They'll quote something like 10c to 20c a pound, I think.
In any case, now you know you want bits of old steel, just keep your eyes open. Scrap steel is actually free, since it's so cheap it's often not worth people's time and petrol to haul to a recycler.
Another source is new steel sellers - they will have a scraps bin, that they send to recyclers and get that crummy price per pound. Plus it will be nice clean new scraps, not rusty old crap.
Your welds are improving fairly rapidly. I'd suggest finding a 2nd hand bookstore that does technical books, looking for some old welding texts. They have a lot more detail than youtube videos.
You made it a bit hard for yourself starting with a small welder and sticks, on thick steel. Yes, can be done, but you're having trouble getting a hot enough arc to form a decent molten pool. The thicker the base metal the faster it sucks heat away. Hence your beads are high and thin, mostly with little penetration. You'd do a lot better on steel between 1 and 3 mm thick.
Also, live with the visor you have, and FIRST get yourself an angle grinder and these disks:
* Face grinding disks. For making bumps flat.
* Thin cutting disks. These are about 1 to 2 mm thick. Used to cut steel to pieces. Like butter.
* A paint and dirt stripper wheel. Seriously, welding clean metal is a whole different experience to welding rusty/dirty/painted steel.
Don't get a small grinder, get at least a 127mm dia wheel size. It doesn't need to be new, try 2nd hand shops/ebay/etc.
Make sure you get disks for steel - there are different types for non-ferrous and masonry grinding.
Oh, and hey, you do have thick leather long sleeve welding gloves, right?
A chipping hammer will be cheap, and very useful too.
One bit of advice. Do not do welding/grinding in the same room as any electronics, or anything delicate at all really. Little metal filings get into everything, and are ruination to circuit boards. Hot spatters will melt into anything they hit. Including glass. if you MUST do metalwork in a room with other stuff, get some big sheets of cardboard or thin MDF, that you can prop up as spark shields.
Also DO NOT:
- Wear synthetic sneakers while welding. Wait till you get a big molten spatter melted through the upper, then you'll see why not.
- Leave any bare skin exposed to the arc UV. Sunburn is just a word that you don't know the meaning of, till you get a welding sunburn.
- Use an angle grinder without hearing protection and good eye protection.
- Have any tins or plastic bottles of flammables around. Weld spatters can burn into them. Or piles of paper, shavings, etc - obviously.
Why do you have a full syringe of cat worming paste propping up a cable in one of your pics?
Here's my recent story of welding troubles:
http://everist.org/NobLog/20140717_poorly_laid_plans.htm