The pictures below show the difference between "Walking The Cup" and Free Handing. Walking the cup would normally be performed with a larger tig rig and gas cup but this is all I had for the pictures. The plate is a piece of 1/4" SS. The tig rig is an air cooled 90 amp torch. The photographs are not very good but give a general idea of whats going on. If you see any errors or have something to add to make this clearer. Please let me know.
Click on the picture to show a text description of what is happening.
Here are some results done on pipe
FREEHANDING is shown below. Many variations exist. My hand is resting on the plate. In some cases it would be my fingertips or forearm. It just depends on the situation.
Click to see the larger picture.