The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Spot Welders

There is nothing like a spot welder for patch panels, bed angles, etc. I've been eye-balling the unit that Eastwood sells for over a year but the $500 needed to get one will buy a lot of good parts. I noted with great interest that there are several types of low cost spot welders on eBay from about $80 to $200. Has anyone had experience good or bad with any particular welders? If you have had good experience please let us know which machine you have, 110V or 220V, and who the supplier was.

Thanks

Shop I used to work at had a Snap-on spot welder that worked nice but sometimes can be difficult to put the "c" around odd shaped panels. So typical we would drill out old spot welds with a spot weld bit and mig the new panels in place through the new panels hole. Most Bodymen I worked with also used this method more mostly for efficiency, U would usually have your mig there anyhow so dragging out 2 units was kinda overkill but if you are looking for completely factory looking spot welds they do work nice.

A plug weld is great for strength and I do have a MIG, but MIG welds are too ugly for use for highly visible areas like bed corner strips and running board braces.

I use powder-coat wherever possible and the running boards are the #1 place for using powder. Filler is not an option for hiding these welds.

I know almost nothing about welding, but I had an experienced body man helping me with my body work. He used what I think you refered to as plug welds, and did an excellent job with a MIG welder. When he finished I don't think it would be possible for you to tell where the welds are.

I don't know if this is a common practice or not, but with panels that were hard to get clamps on, he used self taping metal screws to hold the panels where he wanted them, then removed them after the welding was done. I think he did an outstanding job. I couldn't be more pleased with it. Allen

Why not MIG weld it too high, then grind and sand it down smooth? Then powder coat.

I might end up doing that but I'm still hoping someone on this board will reply to discuss good and bad experiences. I intend to get one and am hoping someone else experience will allow me to make the right choice.

I forgot to mention one of the other great benefits of a spot welder; very little to zero warping from excessive heat.

Come on guys, help me out. There has to be several of you who have a spot welder!

All I want to know is which specific spot welder you have, if it is 110V or 220V, and if it performed well.

Please help me with my question rather than only giving alternate recommendations.

Thanks

Like I mentioned before we had a Snap-on 2300 spot welder it worked great when you COULD fit it in the spot you needed.

For its worth, on the back on my 72 cab the spot welds are big, warped, and quite noticeable. A ground down mig spot weld is invisible by comparison.

I have heard of a British device that attaches to a standard stick welder. It does spot-welds from one side. Don't know the name or manufacturer. It was mentioned in my AH resto book. Don't know how it worked, either, but being able to spot weld without access to the blind side must be easier than even plug welding.

You could buy a spot welder, but you wouldn't have much use for it afterwards.

You could have a shop do a number of spot welds for you without approaching the cost of a bargain welder.

Harbor Freight has them for cheaper, if you don't mind their overall level of quality.

There isn't that much to go wrong with a spot welder. It's a (stepdown) transformer with two copper rods. You can pretty much buy a used one without much worry. Since they don't get used much, it is doubtful that the used one even has much welding time on it anyway. I would still go with a name brand siply because the quality is usually better.

Plug welds (or more properly rosette welds) are fairy easy to touch up with a grinder. They are usually stronger than a spot weld. There is no reason that you can't hide rosette welds just as easily as a spot weld, USING A PROPER WELDER. Welds done with better equipment are almost always better than those done with bargain basement equipment. Rosette welds done on a cheap machine will stick up, pit excessively and will be difficult to grind down properly.

I know almost nothing about body work, so I'll ask a dumb question. If you put in a patch panel, aren't you going to be forced to use body filler of some kind regardles of whether you use a spot welder or a MIG welder? Either way you are going to have a seam that you will want to cover.

I quess you could use a solid weld across the entire panel edge and then grind it smooth, but it would probably warp, and then you would still need some kind of filler to smooth that out.

Obviously there is something I am missing here. Allen

For what it's worth, I saw a show on cable recently that clearly showed a 110volt mig welder (lincoln) that spotted over time, to prevent warping, and then ground away the excess and it was clean as a whistle. No dough needed. That's the way I'm going.