Good ideas all. One practice method I've used is to play with the torch and bronze/brass in making shapes and forms out of filler. Stalagmites raising off a tube. Chasing a drop of filler around making a letter or heart shape. Another is to practice fillet joints on a flat plate of steel with tube stubs. Quick to prep, gives you experience in heating joints with differing thicknesses of materials and is easy to peer inside to see if you flowed an internal fillet. Here's a practice "lug" made from 1.125 x .058 wall over a 1" tube. the pin holds the sleeve in place. Andy.