Apparently I can weld

Not my first weld of the day.

I spent some time down at the local Miniature Train club doing some maintenance on the weekend. This time we were building a frame to hold some spare steel that we are keeping in stock for repairing the track as it ages. Seeing as we were making a steel frame I figured that I would take along my 220BZ Rossi Welder I bought from ebay a while ago. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to buy gas or MIG wire so I had to borrow some rods to use. This did have the advantage of letting me compare this welder to the tiny bit of welding I have done before which has been predominantly stick welding on older transformer based machines.

Pros:

This thing strikes an arc much easier than the old school transformer based welders I have used.
I was using a lower current than the other machine that day (a 20? year old CIG)
It was light and easy to move around.
It was easy to remove the spend rod and put in a new one.
The air coming out the fan at the back of the case never got hot despite being in the sun.

Cons:

I seemed to get the rod stuck to the workpiece more than I remember doing so in the past.
The earth cable was so short that it barly reached straight up to the bench I was working on. I don't really like the idea of my welder being too close to my workpiece lest any spatter or slag get into it an short or something.
Similarly the stinger was a little shorted than I would have liked. However if the earth lead was about the same length it wouldn't be as much of an issue.
When breaking the arc off it lasts for a long time and often leaves a sooty residue before it quenches. A bit of a nit pick really because it comes of easily enough.
The earth clamp feels a bit wussy and seemed to have twisted at some point through the day.

Interesting points:

When the rod sticks to the job there is no buzzing like a the transformer units do.
Everyone commented on how quiet it was. The only noise that you could hear was the noise of the arc itself. This was in a reasonably quiet outdoors area.

All in all there was nothing that should be a dealbreaker I don't think and hopefully I will be able to find somewhere to get a longer earth lead. If you want to have a look at some of my welds, stick around after the break.

These are in order so this first one was my first weld in quite a while.