For me personally I bought the whole kit, and then had to learn to weld. A friend got two pieces of mental and told  me to weld them without a rod, and he said that it was impossible for a beginner to do and that after I finished he would easily be able to break my weld. But on hearing this I was determined on my first weld to get it right, and I did, and he was unable to break it.

He and I would go to the wreckers here in Tokoroa, and we would use the cutting torch to cut the roofs off cars (we were allowed to do this) and we would use the metal to replace floors in cars and other parts of cars that were rusted away and were not able to pass warrant inspections.

I just did this for fun, and I made tools, did many odd jobs around the house like making a grate for my fire place, hinges and other odd jobs. Eventually my life took another direction and I sold my welding gear.