Welding Tips and Tricks

new to welding and loving it!
something about it that just makes me wanna find anything that needs to be welded.....it's like my buddy says, "if you can't weld it, it ain't broken"

my question is about metals. i know that there are lotsa different kindsa metals out there, is there a way to identify what kinda metal you're workin w/? maybe there's a site w/ a buncha pix and discriptions for different types of metals?

thanks.

For stainless steel 304 or 316, there is a test you can do to see which is which. If you grind 0n 304 , the sparks will vanish in mid air, 316 the sparks will fly to the floor and continue rolling. If you have a magnet, stainless steel will not stick to it . Hot rolled steel usually has a black crust on it which needs to be ground off for a better weld. Cold rolled steel is clean and has a brighter finish to it, it's also harder to bend that hot rolled. Aluminum is non magnetic and is very light and scratches easily, silver in color. Brass is gold in colour, easily brazed with silver. These are the metals I work with the most. Of course there are alloys and cast iron , cast alu, etc. but the most common ones used in fab are the ones I mentioned.

Hope this helps.