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 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.

There were a few minor issues with the welder/manual, but when I finally got to using the welder it performed great.The instructions tell you to use thermal heat compound under the welding tips, but don't offer any kind of specification or requirement. Also, none is included with the welder, so you have to come up with something before you can use the welder. After browsing around online for a while it seemed that the thermal compound used under a heat sink was the popular answer. I'm still not sure this is the correct stuff because it oozed out of the connection while I was welding.The manual also mentions a resistance adjustment that is not available on this welder. Not a serious problem, but if the welder is updated, the manual should be too. Some of the adjustments in the manual weren't real clear on what the effect of the adjustment was.The unit doesn't come with a plug. (Considering the variety of available 20 amp, 240 volt outlets available, this isn't all that surprising.) It actually took me two tries to get a matching set.Once I got the unit set-up, I performed about 80 welds. The unit worked as good or better than any other spot welder I've used.

Right out of the box I have had great luck with it. I am only using it for automotive sheet metal and it works great. My only complaint is the weight. On a bench or floor, no issue. Trying to hold it in the air and position it to use around a car is very difficult. Still better than a lightweight toy model.Glad I have it

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.

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.

Two weeks out of the 90 day warranty and I went to change the tip and it broke off in the arm. Getting it fixed under warranty would have been nice but that didn't happen. It has been over two weeks of contacting the seller and their service department and still haven't been able to get repair parts. Should have purchased a HF because I believe they are the same made in China cheap tool. Frustrating that my project is held up because of a little thing like this.

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've held back for years from buying a true spot welder. Since i currently have 5 welders with any or all welding processes, i was able to cover any welding situation. But this spot welder really speeds things up in a sheet welding job. Of course it can't get into some areas but where it can it works great! It will handle 2 sheets of 16ga. Easily. It can burn through if you hold the power too long! We'll see how long it holds up. The extended warranty is the way to go since i don't use it every day.