Stark USA Portable Spot Welder 1/8" Electric Handheld Welding Tip Gun Metal Sheet, Spot Welding Machine for Carbon Steel and Aluminum Sheet, 220V

This item seems to work very good. It is very heavy. Takes two people to operate almost.

This spot welder is solid. It works great for joining sheet metal to sheet metal, and after a few test shots of welding sheet metal to C-channel that seems to work well too at a thickness of about 3/16" (for the 240v version at least). The label says to use no more than 5 seconds on followed by 5 seconds off, I hit it for about 2 seconds at the 3/16" thickness and it looks to be plenty strong, more than 3 seconds probably would have melted the sheet metal.The unit comes with a power cord terminated in spade lugs - no plug - so be prepared to add your own plug to the cord before you can use it. I can see where some people might find this annoying, but I usually end up cutting off factory plugs and installing my own twist-lock plugs anyway so no big deal here.It comes with one extra set of tips, if my memory serves the tips eat themselves fairly quickly so I'll probably stock a dozen pairs or so.The only thing I can say in the negative on this is the packaging. This is shipped in a cardboard box just slightly bigger then the device itself, with a thin foam inner package encasing the device. The thing is so heavy that thin foam was pretty much completely destroyed when I received it, and the outer box had a few holes in it from where the sharp edges poked through in transit. There was no damage to the device itself, but I spent a couple minutes blowing all the foam chunks off of it with compressed air. I can see where some rougher shipping would have probably destroyed the thing due to inadequate packaging.I'll be looking for replacement tips in larger quantities, and longer tongs would be a nice option.

This is an ongoing review which will be added to over time as I learn the ins and outs of this device.The unit I ordered is the 240v version.It seems to be made of sturdy, high quality materials for the most part.So, first issue solved with some monkey business:The manual says to "align the tongs" before operating. To align, the manual says to loosen the four bolts (cluster of 4 bolts, two clusters, one on top and one on bottom. Note: our bolts are slightly different lengths, pay attention for reassembly). Further, the manual indicates which parts can separate via a detailed diagram on a separate page of the booklet. Obviously the tongs should separate from the unit easily, yes? Not in my case. We very carefully took the top 4 bolts all the way out, as well as the protective yellow backsplash panel, in order to extract the top tong (still attached to the beefy wire weave and metal casing). Turns out there's a thin sleeve helping to wedge the tong in place. This was extremely effective at immobilizing the tong, to the point we were wondering if the tong itself was bolted into the casing, hence our extraction process. This sleeve was not mentioned in the manual's text or depicted in diagrams, as far as I could tell. So, if your tongs do not budge when you try to adjust them by simply loosening those bolts, this might well be your issue.

I’m pretty happy with this welder. I’ve had good results while replacing a firewall on an old C10. I really like the clamping pressure you can apply.Make sure all 4 surfaces are clean (front and back of both pieces of sheet metal).You will need to adjust the alignment on the tops which is easy - might want to think about the position the tips will be when clamping (not fully closed bc of the sheet metal being welded).You will need to buy a plug for this and wire it. I found one on Amazon. Wiring it wasn’t hard.

I love this tool, so far, I've really only used it on 26 & 24 ga. galvanized but just a fraction of a second zap is enough to create a solid weld. After more than a hundred welds, the tips still look almost new, they seem to be holding up better than I remember spot welder tips doing from back in my sheet metal mechanic days. The short arms that come with the tool are pretty restrictive, so I ordered a pair of the 12" ones, now I should have plenty of reach. With the longer arms, you don't get near as much pressure at the tips, holding the metal together, but except in extreme cases, it shouldn't be a problem. I wonder why I didn't buy one of these YEARS ago, can't think of how many times it would've come very handy. This IS a bench-top tool, it is not intended to be, or appropriate for uses other than that.One thing that would make this way more handy, is if someone made an aftermarket stand set-up so that it could be foot operated, like the commercial spot welders Ive used in the past.

I seen the reviews and I also did some youtube research. I cant for the life of me get this darn thing to work like i'm seeing others.. I want to use this on 26ga 304 ss and 26ga G90. I've tried 1-5 second intervals and nothing seems to make it strong enough to stand up to a flick or light tap. I want to love this product so bad and really would be a great tool to add to my metal shop.

Spot weld like a pro. Save time. No clean up. Just a beautiful factory like spot weld. I love it. Well worth the price. 4 sec on and move to the next spot. Should have bought one of these years ago.