I’m new here too. No welding machine or experience yet, but I hope to be in a position to start learning sometime in the Spring or Summer. This would be a hobby for me later in life as I near retirement. I hope to learn about the process and good starting machines and equipment.
Welcome aboard!
There are lots of good YouTube videos to give you some sense of what hobby-grade welding includes. But hands on practice is the only way to get good at it.
There are lots of helpful folks on here including active and retired professionals with deep expertise. Mixed in together with beginners, and amateurs like me. My welding is mostly minor repairs on farm equipment over the past 15 years beginning after I retired. My avatar photo, showing adding a trailer hitch to a tractor's box blade, is typical.
Welding is a great hobby. You can start with an inexpensive used welder that will re-sell for what you paid for it. Practice to get that essential hands-on experience. Then after you have some sense of what you are doing, you may want to move up to something better suited to what you need. But buy quality safety gear right from the beginning - helmet, gloves, leather apron. Those plus a couple of angle grinders etc are just as essential as the welder itself.
