re: I want to learn to weld..

Anyone can learn to weld, being good at it takes some patience and practice.
I had a knack for it in high school and a good shop teacher. My uncles who were both iron workers convinced me to go the engineering route in college.

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Just so no one gets confused MIG, TIG, and stick all need shielding gas to work correctly. The shield gas in stick welding comes from the flux on the outside of the stick vaporizing. MIG and TIG (the IG stands for inert gas) get the shield gas from a separate tanked supply, usually CO2, Argon, or a mix of the two. If you use MIG or TIG wire without shield gas you will get a shitty looking weld that is almost certainly contaminated. What you are generally seeing when a person uses a MIG welder and no separate shielding gas supply is them using flux core wire. Flux core can be used in a MIG welder but is basically stick welding where the stick is replaced with feedable wire and the flux (which provides the shield gas) is on the inside versus the outside of a stick welding electrode.

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I have known a pile of welders, some very good ones, who did not understand that all practically all welding uses some kind of shielding gas...many think if there ain't a cylinder around there ain't no gas. Its pretty fundamental to all forms of welding....

Not so long ago, maybe 20 years now, there was a box car manufacturing plant outside of Athens Georgia. They would hire ANYONE willing to show up on time and do what they were told and teach them to weld boxcars. In about 30 days anyone who was going to make it at that plant was welding boxcars on their own. 30 days. Boxcars....subject to all manner of outrageous stresses. The pay was lousy so it was mostly young kids straight out of high school with no experience doing much of anything....but many of them could learn how to weld good enough to stick around building boxcars after about 4 weeks. Its a pretty simple skill at its core. Doing it well is a whole other can of worms....it is about as high level a skill, when done in situations where life limb and property are respected, as being a surgeon...but making a grill is well withing anyone who is not blinds ability...

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TIG is more for soft metals such as aluminum

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You care to go ahead and explain how metals like hastelloy, inconel, and other alloys are some of the hardest metals around are almost exclusively TIG welded and X-rayed daily to keep the oil, gas, and chemical industry running? Go back to speaking what you know and not what you heard on YouTube. There's a whole different world out there.

100% Flag, cleanliness is vitally important. Also have to remove lubricants of any kind. Some steels are pickled and oiled to first remove & help prevent rust.