Hey, I'm the perfect example of perfect health

, I've welded plenty of galv. Seriously, If it's strut we're talking about, clean the outside with a bristle disc, it's easy to see when it's gone. Trouble is, you can't clean inside. Good ventilation, keep your head out of the smoke, With stick, use a fan 10 feet away.
To hurry the learning process with stick, prep the steel. Once you can do all the joints on 3/8' steel, then move thinner. I got lazy a few days ago, after fixing a drawbar for a local farmer, I was set up. Wasting ten minutes, I stood up two 1/4 x 1-1/2 hot rolled side by side. With no prep, I gave them 3/32" gap, and went at a 14" long bead vertical up. 3/32 7018 should have been good. No prep, no bevel, it was a very irregular root. The cover pass wasn't something I'd brag about. With 37.5 x2 with 1/16 land clean, the result would have been much nicer.