I'm not going to say that you can't teach yourself, but what I AM going to say is that you can probably go to your local CC/Votech and take some classes at night for around $125 and you will save yourself quite a bit of time and aggravation. Books are fine, and messing around is fine, but you will learn MUCH MUCH quicker if you have somebody who can take a look at your beads a few times throughout each class and identify what is wrong.
Its easy to see that your welds ****, it's not always so easy to fix it. Also, "MIG" welding can be dangerous for people to go right out and learn on, because it is a glorified hot glue gun, and if its your first time, with a steady hand and some luck, you could lay a bead that looks pretty nice, but has zero penetration, and have no way of really knowing.
Do yourself a favor, spend 100-150 on a class that will give you some basics on Gas, Stick, Mig and Tig and develop whichever skills you want from there. Most importantly, it will give you proper safety instruction!
As a side note, a "professional" weldor/fabricator who I knew through a mutual friend used to talk about how "badass" his aluminum spool gun was and how the small benchwork I do with TIG is a waste of time. Blah blah blah. A few months later the ******* nearly killed himself welding on a diesel fuel tank. People laugh because I wear safety glasses under my welding hood, and because I don't stand in front of oxygen regulators when setting up O/A torches, because I am **** about cleaning work before welding. These same people only laugh because they just don't know any better.
