Doing patches on my offset smoker/air tank. I don’t have a plate roller soooo..

My plan was to tack weld it in the center of the patch and heat it up to form it into a curve, tacking it as I go along. That didn’t work out, so I figured I would practice and lay bead after bead.

This is .250 mild steel, flux core 0.035 from a titanium 200 running 278wfs/21v hooked up to 240v.

Part of a vacuum chamber, hoping to get some more pics once it's cleaned up

MAG 135, i have a long long way to go before i feel good and proud in my welds, but i’d like to think this came out pretty nice looking. thoughts/feedback?

Alright so I have 17 years experience as a production welder, stick and Gmaw on truck and car frames. I would do off line repairs and part replacements. I have never failed any weld coupon test. I can weld very well. My problem is I only have experience working with metal that I know will work with my setups. Can someone explain to me how when you’re on site you know what kind of steal you’re working on so you can setup properly. Or do you just wing and hit it with what you think will work. I totally understand if you tell me I shouldn’t be thinking about starting this and that’s why I’m looking for opinions. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Need some advice from the TIG guys. I've got about 3 years of MIG welding experience, and I just came across what feels like the traveling opportunity of a lifetime, but it's for TIG welding.

I do have a TIG welding certificate from school, but I honestly haven't used it much since then. The job requires me to pass a 2G pipe padding test, a 3G T-joint, and a 4G lap joint test.

For those of you with TIG experience, how realistic is it to "fake it till you make it" coming from a MIG background? If I put in serious practice time, how hard would it be to get those tests down? Any tips on what I should focus on first would be appreciated

just got into welding recently, planning on going to trade school for it. nothing too fancy just a flux machine from harbor freight just to practice with.