Never really had the opportunity to be a good welder with my dad's old Lincoln tombstone, but I could lay some serviceable beads with it after a few minute's practice. Years later as an engineer, I tried to get handy with a cheap Sears Mig buzzbox we had in the R+D shop at that company, and again after some practice could lay serviceable beads. But I never felt like either tool had any precision, you got what the gun/rod could deliver and that's that. Seeing what a good tig welder with a good machine could do (e.g. rocket engine parts), and tig's general versatility with various metals, I wanted to learn to do it. I had a few projects in mind, so when I bought a welder of my own, I got a DC inverter Tig machine from a higher-end Chinese manufacturer (it also has a plasma cutting setting, using a different torch of course, and a different (air/N2) gas feed system, and came with a stick holder as well). The plasma cutter capability comes in handy. Tig was actually easier to learn, and to me felt more natural after doing a fair bit of torch and iron soldering over the years - the torch is a heat source like a pencil flame, and you dab in filler metal as you go. Have never even used the stick feature, as tig is just too handy for anything I'm doing, which is mostly small stuff (1/8" thick or less). Even played around with welding up some cupro-nickel. (the wife had a lot of old european coins made from various Cu/Ni alloys, so I made a little candy dish, sticking a bunch of 2 schilling and 30 kroner and suchlike coins together with some copper filler from old Romex wiring. FWIW, cupro-nickel is pain to weld, not nearly as easy as steel or even stainless). But still, Tig is fun. The only thing I don't like about my machine is that the footpedal cannot be set to a current limit, you get full machine current (80 or 90 amps on 110v feed?) with full pedal, so it is a little trickier to learn to use with light gauge metal. I may trade up one of these days for a more controllable machine, and also get an AC capable box for aluminum...