Spot welder buying tips

[eriknetherlands]

As I'm heading into the more serious welding, I am in need of a spot welder.
I have the inner sill ready to find it's sill(y) friends again in a few days.

Having never played with one before; I'm a novice in this field.
Located in Europe, so I have 220-240 and 380-400V available.
I rather pay up for a second hand but serious brand, vs a new and just-get-by non serious brand.

one thing i am wonderring about is the layer thickkness of the sill construction. The sill is built up out of three layers of 1.2 mm each spot welded together. That seems to be too much for most hand held devices as they seem to max out at 2*1,5 mm. Is welding 3*1,2 mm doable with any hand held device?


Anyone have tips / hints / of must have features?

 

[m_thompson]

I bought a Miller spot welder to do the front fenders on my CS. The specs say: Weld up to 1/8 in (3.2 mm) total material thickness or two pieces of 20 gauge (1.8 mm) galvanized metal. These seem to be common specs for hand held welders. It worked OK for the two layer welds on the fenders and support structure.

The tips on my spot welder screw on, and I had to make some special tips for confined areas. You can also buy or make different tongs if you can't get the tips into a tight space.

You could ask Miklós Mészáros ([email protected]) what spot welder he uses. He is does fantastic CS restorations, and is very willing to discuss is work.

 

[autowerks]

Hi, we never spot welded anything, we made a 3/16 hole in the outer layer and welded it to the inner layer to have good contact and bond( filled the hole)

 

[nico13]

Erik, MIG welding is much stronger than spot welding.

 

[eriknetherlands]

Guys thanks for the tips.
I have aquired a second hand professional spot welder with a capacity up to 1,8+1,8 mm.
As adviced (thanks Nico), I will use it selectively with , mainly choosing it to duplicate original appearence.
I also read that when using a spotwelder, you make more welds (roughly every other 2 cm) and for rosette/plug welding with a MIG a distance of 4 cm's is enough.

So for me this difference reflects the strength of the 2 weld types.