That "feeling actually connected instead of constantly worrying" part is so real. Did you have any trouble with the setup, like getting the store to register the SIM for you? I've heard that can be a hurdle for tourists sometimes.

Man, that's wild. I read something similar in an old foundry manual once, about how the angle can trap air and slag if you're not careful. They had a diagram showing almost exactly what your foreman said, a steeper tilt keeps the junk away from the lip. It's one of those things you don't think matters until you see the numbers drop. Your scrap rate going down that much proves it. Sometimes the old guys just know the tricks.

Read a pro painter's blog that said scraping first is key, Claire_Ramirez22, and I've never looked back.

Does the artistic part ever feel like a chore instead of fun?

Yeah that article lines up with what I saw at my last shop... we had the flow cranked way up thinking it was better. Ended up chasing dust nibs for weeks. @kai327 you can use a basic anemometer, just take a bunch of readings across the filter face and average them out. Our numbers were way over that 100 fpm mark too, dialing it back made a real difference.