Hey thanks for the replies fella's. sorry it's taken a while to respond. As it turned out my problem was: getting ahead of the puddle. Ie , not understanding that it is the puddle that does the welding not the rod and that you use the rod to create and control the puddle. As soon as I realised that,...

Guys I'm losing it. Have spent untold hours, consumed hundreds of rods 6013's 2.5 mm ( 3/32 ) and 3.2mm ( 1/8 ), cut up at last count 18 metres of 50 x 6 mm flat bar into 100 mm pieces and I still cannot turn out even a reasonable vertical up 90 degree joint. Vertical Butt welds ? do em in my sleep....