I've been thinking about a windscreen because I definitely saw the bad effects of my shielding gas getting blown aside. For now, using a high gas flow rate, a gas lens and a smallish cup (5) seems to be keeping that problem gone despite the breezes.

The bracket that I made was from .190" thick stock and I finally settled on 140 amps being a good setting for it. I do have a foot pedal and I'm starting to think that I need to develop better skill at using it in response to the appearance of the puddle, but learning to simultaneously maintain a constant tip distance and travel rate, feed in filler rod at the right spot and times, and dynamically control the heat is a considerable trick for this old dog to learn.

My torch came with a Euro handle with integrated manual switch but since my foot pedal also has a switch built into it I removed the handle and switch because it made the torch about the size of a shovel handle and hard to manipulate. I replaced it with a length of 5/8" garden hose and it's nice and slim now and I use the pedal's switch exclusively.

I just made up a collet chuck drawbar for my lathe from stainless all thread, nut and washer and it was considerably easier to weld than anything I made yesterday out of aluminum, so I'm thinking that I'm on a productive track and mostly just need to improve my skills.