Spot welding
 

If you are considering buying a spot welder for your projects, this is a good read .

https://www.autospeed.com/cms/a_113277/article

https://www.autospeed.com/cms/a_113279/article

https://www.autospeed.com/cms/a_113278/article

Spot Welding
 

Hi Mike,

Good articles. I would like to have one at times but I had a guy in Dandenong who did spot welding for me. Sadly, like so many other older businesses he has closed shop since I had the chain box lids done.

I have been amazed at some of the spot welding done on my GS body. They must have been very powerful to spot weld 1" half round bar to the 1/8" steel floor. Think I would black out the neighbourhood even if I had one like that!

Cheers,

Nice
 

Nice job on the chain box lids :thup2:

Rather than using the electric spot welding process, many home hobby people use the plug welding technique where you drill a hole in one side and fill the hole using a Mig or Tig welder , you grind down the plug weld flat , it's a rather messy method but it does work. I used that method on the C8 body , where some of the panels are up to approx. 2mm thick.

These days, the home hobby welders have gone ahead in leaps and bounds: for around 600-70 bucks you can buy a decent quality all singing and dancing TIG welder and weld just about anything including Aluminium. I'm not a fan of the 3 in one welders myself, the Stick, Mig and Tig in one box style of setup, they are a compromise to some degree.

Drilled 5/16" to 3/8" holes and a large number of clamps plus a grinder is my spot welder...not that I wouldn't like to do otherwise.

more
 

I've seen situations where certain fussy restorers do the plug weld, grind flat then use a small spot drill to replicate the small dish that a genuine spot welder leaves on the panel. It never looks totally convincing though , because the genuine spot crater has a slight dish or cratered shape to it that is not easy to replicate

The welders at the local TAFE were 3 phase things..... like night and day the difference to the average home setup struggling with single phase .. your grandmother could do perfect large welds with those industrial machines.

When I built the new Land Rover tailgate I used a common household adhesive on the Alu panels.. it's still holding up good as new years later despite being out in the weather . I visited Ian Duddy the Land Rover body builder and he showed me the method of spot welding he uses on Alu panels ... and all he had was a medium sized small factory spot welder.

Ah, and then there's the reach. I'd spend the bucks to get a home spot welder only to find the welds I need are beyond the reach of my new toy. If the right dimple was a thing I'd get out the dremel tool.