Welcome to the forum. Since I started at an age over 20 years older than you, you're definitely not too late.

While there are limits to what you can get out of a cheap instrument, this info might help on producing a good tone.

Divide the space between the bridge and the end of the fingerboard into 5 zones, each about the width of the bow hair.  (A newly rehaired bow, if you have one that's going bald.)

Call the one closest to the bridge #1, and the one closest to the fingerboard #5.

On one of the strings, each of those zones is called a soundpoint.  You have to play differently at each soundpoint to get a good tone.

#1 - play slow, with a lot of pressure. If you get a low-pitched "crunching" noise, that's too much pressure. If you get a high, whistling noise, that's too little.  Start out with the bow just resting on the string, somewhere between the middle of the bow and the tip. Bow moderately fast (use the whole bow, both directions). That will almost certainly give you the whistling noise. Now slow it down, and use more pressure. Keeping going slower and with more pressure until you start hearing the crunching sound. That's when you know you're going too slow, or too hard. Experiment with speed and pressure until it makes the string vibration as wide as possible. That mean your bow is sticking to the string at just the right time to add more energy, like pushing somebody on a swing.  (It will be easier to see on the D and G strings, but it applies to all 4.)

#2 - will require a moderately faster bow, and less pressure.

#3 - will require a faster bow and even less pressure (but still more than the weight of the bow for ideal results).

#4 - will require an fairly fast bow, and only light pressure. For the portion of the bow near the frog, you don't want to add any, and may not need any more than the weight of the bow out at the tip.

#5 - requires the fastest bowing and the lightest pressure. You may have to exert negative pressure (by pressing on the back of the bow with your little finger) to get the string to vibrate as widely as possible. I've found that to bow that fast is fairly difficult to control - don't be surprised if at first your bow goes all over the place.

I wrote those up in numeric order, but you don't have experiment with them in that order.  Either #3 or #4 will be the easiest for most people (depends on how light your touch naturally is as to which one will be easier for you.) 

Use the technique I described for number 1 for each of them. (For the higher numbered ones, it might be easier to start hard and slow and move to light and fast, instead of vice versa. The idea is go past what works in both directions, so you have some idea of where "middle" is.

The two tests of whether you're doing it right are how wide the string is vibrating, and how good the tone sounds. I'd recommend either getting another person to listen from a distance, or record from a distance (at least 4-5 feet/ 1.5 meters). What it sounds like under your ear can be quite different from what the rest of the world hears. And, if you've got a crappy instrument, the sound may not be wonderful even when you're doing it well. It should be as good as that instrument can get, though.

If the instrument is 10 years old, you might want to consider new strings. It won't fix everything by a long shot, but will eliminate at least one problem.

Hope this helps