You really need to start with Oxy so you learn to master the puddle.
Once you have done that then you have a good feel for how molten metal flows and will find stick welding a lot easier.
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Yep. I started with oxy-acetylene and moved on to stick. No shortage of either of those in a pipe-fitter's shop. I could do it, but it's not like I could put two pieces of 8" pipe together that would hold steam. That was before the days of Mig welders. Now I'm almost useless with my cheap no-gas mig welder. In honesty, I don't practice enough to know how good, or bad, my welder is. I do have an auto-darkening hood and I'm sure it's a big part of why my welds work at all.
[On a side note, one thing I loved to do in my dad's shop, when I was about 13, was to play with the large quantity of mercury he kept around for servicing mercury switches in thermostats (and other uses, I suppose). After playing around with that, I was happy to go unload the shipments of transite (asbestos) pipe being delivered to the shop.]
Richard L.
P.S. I understand that one side affect of handling mercury is the lifelong inability to put things into few words.