Turns out I'd been running my root pass way too cold at the Danville water tower job
I was fighting porosity for two weeks straight on that tank and blaming the wire, the gas, the wind, everything but me. Then a guy named Reggie watched me run one bead and asked why I had the machine cranked down at 85 amps when the procedure called for 110. Sure enough, bumping it up cleaned up the whole pass, and I felt like a rookie who'd been at it since March for nothing. How do you all catch yourselves getting into a bad habit without someone standing there watching?