THis may be a dumb question are you using flux core wire? Also if the metal you are trying to weld is to thin you will burn holes you may have to cut a little farther away from the rust to get to more solid metal. Like said above make sure the welder is turned low. On mine the instructions said where to put the positive and negative wire on the inside of the welder, one was for gas and the other was for flux core wire. I did as the instructions said but it did not work to well so I reversed what the instructions said and mine worked better. Hope this helps.
