I am a retired coded welder. I won't go into the important technical side of welding, I'll say just enough to get you to put down a run of weld that you can learn from and improve upon. With MMA (Manuel Metal Arc) or simply ' stick or arc welding', you should start your weld on the left side and move the rod to the right. NOTE !. We push the rod into the metal from the right when using a Mig welder. With arc welding in the basic downward weld, start by holding the rod at about 90° upright and a 25° to 30° angle to the right from where the point of the arc is. When ready, strike up an arc, keeping a gap from the tip of the rod around a millimetre from metal plate and letting the arc strike up and build up a weld (dwell) pool before moving the rod to the right while pushing the rod at the same time so it feeds into the metal. Keep practicing until the weld is complete. When the stick is almost finished with, simply lift the rod away from the metal plate. Where you started your weld and built up the dwell (head) weld, at the point of ending the weld, your weld will taper or 'tail'. This is where your new weld will start. As before, start the weld allowing the weld pool to build up to form a neat joint so your weld run takes off where the first weld ended. If the weld is flat and irregular in width such as a thick slug like shape, your speed from left to right (L to R) is to slow. A thin narrow weld shows your L to R speed is to fast. In this instance the weld won't fully fuse to the base metal. Often this weld has a rounded shape with entrapped slag An irregular weld spattered with spots of slag is often because the arc length is to long. Instead of the suggested 1mm gap between the base metal and the tip of the rod, say for example 7mm the weld won't adhere. It will be what's commonly referred to as 'bird shit' welding. When you are satisfied with your weld, clean the area. A good practice is to lay down runs of weld of say 75mm. Clean the weld and start laying a second weld next to the first ensuring the arc is next to the first run so it lays 50% over the first run. Clean the area again and repeat the process until you have a 75mm square made up of several welds. When complete start welding on top of the base welds but this time start 90° to the first welds. Carry on the process so you end up with a square lump of weld about 30mm tall. If you have any slag you've not cleaned properly, you will have slag holes coming through all layers of weld. Complete the process until perfect. I welded for over 30 years. I still practiced this several times throughout my years of welding. When doing fillet welds, ensure the weld pool is fusing both metals into one. Maintain a rod angle of 25° to 30° to the right but this time, angle the rod towards you by 45°. This will give you an equal leg length and with practice a decent weld. Hope this is of help.

@MonkeyWoodworks

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Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! This is some amazing information and I will be sure to put it to good use once it cools down some. It is still over 100deg out so trying to learn how to weld as a hobby in those temps does NOT sound like fun to me. Again, thank you for your feedback!

Go from left to right

@MonkeyWoodworks

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So I need to pull away from the puddle instead?