"

(It took me some time to write this as you may have already added stuff, or there could be stuff already there I missed in the first place)

May I.....  Nathaniel, I think you have pointed out one of the most fascinating double edges of the internet, and certainly this frustrating Wikipedia. (please forgive me taking this time here, but for the sake of your welding article case, might I be so bold to attempt advancing a much, much larger cause as well) 

You have said yourself, that you are not a highly experienced ""welder"", save for I'm sure at least some time spent laying down a few good beads, yet you haven't been known to build large constructions where lives might have depended?  I have that right about you, yes?  

HOWEVER, what you have done through this string of welding articles, I find simply fantastic.  It is concise and worded at a level properly aimed at most anyone already competent enough to begin welding, yet simply needs to get the overview.  It is as authoritative as any single, or group of books and articles I've read on welding as a hole. (That should encourage, and scare you at the same time). Now we just need to add a bit more about the Art.  Yes, that ethereal bane stalking wikipedia bureaucrats who can't stand things which don't come up in google counts.

The list of unsourced statements you have offered, may exist in no small part, to the very lack of ""authoritative"" sources available for such things.  I have never, NEVER come across two welding books which are consistent through a ""school of thought"" on such a list of interdependent items.  It is precisely the effect of deep interrelation, that no two instructors will ever approach welding exactly the same, yet 'miraculously' so many welds hold together and perform their needed functions in our lives.  After the instructor has pointed out the canvas, paints and brushes, than he must leave the student to his own devices.  To hone a skill set, to practice an art.  Practice.  For ultimately, the welders experience becomes the most reliable gauge to deciding the finished quality of a weld.  So practice and time under the hood is everything ""so they say"".  

X-Ray is really quite impractical for all but the most over-funded projects.  Destruction, by cross-cutting open the weld or simply trying to break it, is what the most honest instructor will tell a student he must do if he wants to know (learn) what it takes to make a good weld.  Breaking things, is the engineeres absolute best instruction manual, and he/she must hold in great regard and memory, those times where they witnessed failure, so better to prevent it.  That is what truly builds experience, and it is only the experienced person who has any hope of mastering any art.

A highly technical, well sourced, and cited article such as this, MUST in some way acknowledge that the details will only go so far before it must address that which I have seen turn the stomach of so many a geekzoid wikipedian.....   those chanting the endless mantra of NPOV and that shit-source of false surety, google counts; That there are people out there who know more than google.  And there always will be.  That these articles, if wikipedia wishes to survive, if wikipedia ever wishes to be more than an ARTIFICIAL intelligence, it must learn to allow by tolerance alone of need be, or better yet, to encourage those who have deep knowledge into feeling more comfortable here.  To collaborate, to offer their thoughts and experience here, to celebrate the diversity of opinion, and even the how-tos and what-fors wherein work can be done with great satisfaction and supreme result, for all.

This largely tedious, wasteful, foolhardy, and pointless absolute fixation around which too many wikipedians have styled themselves as NPOV warriors, by demanding citation on every minute single detail, will be this wiki's undoing.   

From my experience, the arc is held simply as short as possible so as to concentrate heat in the shortest possible time, yet long enough to avoid dipping the tip while the hand naturally shakes minutely.  The amount of heat, the amount of heat the power-supply can deliver (over time, and becomes and very important factor in calculating ""duty-cycle"") to the weld pool, and thus how convex or concave the pool is laid with filler, defines (for me) how close I can get to the work.  Duty Cycle, is a calculation of the machines ability to deliver a given heat, for a given time, vs. the time it must literally rest idle before it has radiated or cooled the internal workings of the machine, completely irrespective of the work piece. Yet this largely defines the maximum amount of heat, to a given thickness, in a 'shortness' of time that a welder can put into the work piece.  Aluminum for example is notorious for its ability to ""wick"" (conduct) heat away from the p