Harbor freight spot welders ! Anyone have one and does it work good??

[ma mopar nutz]

Hey gang getting closer to hanging new tin on the 68' X and want to buy a spot welder and have been looking around I saw that HF sells a 120v and 240v version does anyone have one of these spot welders or used one? Any feedback is appreciated!:headbang:

 

[flypaper]

i would not trust the weld penetration of any of those spot welders.
save up your loot and buy a good mig that uses gas (hobart,miller or lincoln)
the lower end models are not that expensive..

 

[snakeoil24]

I tried one of the harbor spot units and it sucked!

 

[Lowhound]

I purchased one of those & intended to use for the same purpose as you. Never really used it on much of anything though except some scrap sheet metal to see how good or bad it worked . A mig does everything you will need & you wont have to worry about your car falling apart.

 

[ma mopar nutz]

Thanks for the replays got a mig welder was just looking to get closer to factory look especially on the trunk gutters and figured a spot welder would take a lot less prep time but I'm not looking to shell out a huge chunk of change for one !:headbang:

 

[flypaper]

a spotwelder is a waste of your money
unless you are using it for strictly cosmetics
and for that, it isn't worth the investment.
you can never get a consistant weld and
i sure wouldn't trust the strength of the weld it will give you
the ones they used at the factory used alot of voltage
to be able to penetrate the thicker metals.
and they were big,bulky and expensive.
to duplicate that with some cheap home machine is impossible...
if you want a factory look with a mig
you can either use a pencil eraser in the primer or
you can use a cylindrical cutting burr.
both give good results

 

[snakeoil24]

The Spot welders in the plants where big buck I have seen them used for 5000.00 dollars and really old units for sure, Save your money.