Welding Tips and Tricks

At my high school the only stick welders we have are 1960's era Aircos. I've personally had a lot of trouble get good clean arcs. Should I continue to tell my shop teacher to buy a new welder or stick it out. Do you have any recommendations for a AC/DC stick welder that's kind of cheaper( Lincoln or Miller)?

Never hurts to have new equipment - but my 1963 Airco 300 stick/tig (my avatar) is one of the nicest stick welders I've used.

I also have nice inverters, and they weld good too.

Not trying to offend you, but if you are a high school student why are you telling your teacher to buy new equipment?
Does he/she have problems using the welder as well?

Although, inverters are power savers in comparison. As part of your class, I would suggest running the math for expected arc time and the savings that would represent at the Kwh rate your school pays.

Idle run time is not much power, the main savings is with the arc on.

If your schools has enough machines running for a long enough period each day, the power savings may add up to a long term financial savings equal to the cost of the new machines.

Old equipment isn't necessarily bad equipment. You're there to learn welding, so maybe you haven't learned it yet?

If the machines are genuinely flawed, you might also research how to fix them, and present *that* idea to the instructor. That would carry a little weight, and convince the bureaucracy to say 'yes'.

Didn't mean for that post to sound harsh, if it did. Every tool, whether it's a welding machine or a shovel, has a particular technique to it. The technique changes from machine to machine. Just as driving a vehicle with an automatic transmission is different than driving a vehicle with a manual transmission, different welders weld differently. You may already be an ace with a DC inverter stick welder, and maybe the 60s vintage transformer Aircos are AC (my bad, I don't know). The point is, right now the assignment is: make welds with this welder. It may be a matter of learning the technique specific to this machine to make that happen. That will certainly be the case if you walk into a welding shop looking for a job: they will want you to use the equipment on hand to make things happen, not complain about the age of the equipment or blame bad welds on the equipment.