Hey guys,

Has anyone ever used the following Spot and Stitch welders sold by Eastwood?

Let me know what you think...

Bought the spot welder and was never able to get it to work.

Heats up the upper layer of metal which expands away from the lower layer. Then it's supposed to melt the upper layer into the lower layer.....

Yeah, right.......Need to hold the 2 metal layers together somehow for a good weld.

Save yer money and buy a spot welder from Harbor Freight.

Dunnow on stitch welders, I bought a Miller 135 MIG welder with gas and never looked back.

Ken

The spot welder works, but you have to use it correctly. You have to fit the two sheets together very well, and you have to clamp them. If the unheated sheet can move relative to the sheet you're working on, it won't work. If you can't clamp, you can use magnetic holders. This is one advantage over the "real" spot welders, as you MUST be able to reach both sides with an actual spot welder, where the Eastwood tool only needs to reach one side (with magnetic "clamps").

I haven't tried the stitch welder, though I have one.

I'll agree a MIG is a better general purpose welder. The spot welder is quite specialized, and really best for things like replacing a panel that was originally spot welded by the factory.

Did it all.....

Clamped it, cleaned the metal, cleaned the metal again, hamered metal into 2 nesting dimples, hammered upper sheet while hot, pre dished the upper sheet into a concave dimple to ensure connection, begged with it, pleaded with it, cussed at it....Enough!

Now, for my spotwelds, I use the real thing.

I just borrow the two jaw 110v spotwelder that I talked the model shop (at work) into buying.

Clamp between the copper arms, tap the lever, and zap.... perfect weld!

Looks like Harbor Freight sells a very similar product.

Ken

Thanks for the input guys, those products looked neat and I thought I might be able to save a few bucks at the same time, by not having to buy a MIG welder.

Would a MIG welder without Gas be a good choice instead of the Spot and Stitch welders from Eastwood?

I would just hold your nose and buy a MIG with gas now. You'll only need to do it once (well, except get more gas, later). A wire-feed welder w/o gas is hard to get tidy welds out of, whereas with gas, it's easy. If you're really tight on cash, buy one of the gasless MIGs that can be upgraded to gas later. Something like the Lincoln WeldPak 100 that's also in Eastwood's catalog can be had for about US$350 (v. Eastwood's US$550 price) from several places including Sears. It can be upgraded to gas for about US$100-US$150.

I only bought the spot-welder for one job that required spot welds from one side of a panel. I wouldn't have it except for that one job, and I wouldn't recommend buying one unless you have a similar (very specialized) need.

I already did most everything wrong here!

Eastwood spot welder: Never tried it.

Eastwood stitch welder: Better than nothing but still a pain in the ass, theoretically it has a rectifier in it that makes an AC welder DC, drops the amperage by half and it "shakes" the rod to keep it from sticking. Honestly I had better results using the tiny rods for it directly in my 220v AC welder turned all the way down.

Flux cored wire feed: The flux core really helps penetration on thicker metals, unfortunately it does for thin metal too, I have a Lincoln 110v HD that even turned all the way down punches holes in the 914. Arguable better than the stitch welder but you really need to get used to only running an arc for a second of so.

I think gas mig is the way to go for this. I actually like flux core for other stuff, but on the thin Porsche sheet metal it's a pain - welding perches on truck axles it's great!

This is great information, I will wait a little and buy a MIG with Gas.

I'll look at Harbour Freight as well.

Thanks a bunch!

When using MIG for welding thin sheetmetal sections on the 914, use a chill plate behind the weld.

For example, when welding in a patch in the fender, place a copper surface behind the cut line where you are trying to weld. The weld won't stick to the copper, the chill plate quickly freezes the metal and limits the weld burn through.

I use a hunk of copper pipe on a dowel. Pound one end flat to act as the chil plate and hold the flat section directly behind where you want to weld.

Works great, reduces burn through.

Ken

Just resurrecting this...

I'd used the Eastwood spot welder before, with good results, and I'm soon to use it again for a floor on my "other" Porsche. kwales' bad experience puzzled me, as I had no difficulty. I recently got an auto-darkening helmet, so just now, as a test, I took a bit of 16g sheet scrap that had surface rust on it, and a bit of 22g scrap that had a bit less surface rust on it. I did ZERO prep work, other than flattening both pieces. I clamped them together with vice grips.

Using 60 amps (their recommendation) and a new tip, I made two spot welds. The directions on the device are to let the electrode touch the surface, which starts resistance heating, then pull the electrode up just a tad (there's a trigger that sets the electrode position) and get an arc started. The color of the metal went from dull red to bright white instantly (and my new helmet darkened), unless I pulled up too far, when it would get much dimmer or go out entirely.

Holding the first arc for about 4 seconds gave me a spot on the other side of the 16g sheet (was welding the 22g to the 16g bit), but no real penetration, and I could pull it off pretty easily. Holding the arc for about 10 seconds (took two tries, broke the arc once pulling up too far), I got a good sized ring of discoloration on the back side and some obvious melting. The front side was quite melted. I couldn't pull the two apart even with a hefty tug. Considering spot welds aren't supposed to be individually all that strong, I didn't give it a really serious stress test.

So, I'm convinced this thing does work as advertised, even with pretty sorry starting materials. If you have a need to weld to panels together with either relatively low heat and distortion, or you're trying to replicate spot welds for "authenticity", and you either don't want to buy a bulky "real" spot welder, or you simply can't get to both sides of the panel easily, this is a good tool. If you already have an arc transformer, the attachment itself is only $50 or thereabouts.

Sorry, no pics, my camera batteries are dead.