gasket999
getting there...
- Messages
- 354
- Location
- Manchester, UK
Hi folks.
I'm doing more and more car body repair and while the trusty MIG has been great (and I now have a nice TIG set to use too), I'm very interested in a spot welder to replace factory panels with proper spots rather than puddle welds, which are fine - but the cleaner spots would help me work a lot faster and cleaner.
I'm looking more towards a spot welding station with a lead than a hand held device.
My searches keep leading me to a Tecnica Scorpion. They seem to be about £4k new, and readily available at around £1k used. The basic setup looks fine - though I would need to buy extra arms to reach different places. Similarly I would want the slide hammer/dent puller attachment. Based on my experience with R-tech, who are a Tecnica supplier, and were phenomenal in servicing/repairing my second hand TIG set, II would most likely buy used and have it sent straight to them for servicing. So a reasonable budget seems to be about £1500 for a used, but checked/serviced setup
The material I want to work with is usually 0.8-2mm thick steel and 1-1.2mm thick aluminium - I can't actually tell from any tech specs if this machine can 'do' aluminium.
I'm aware the scorpion is 415v and I only have single phase in the workshop and don't know if such a machine can be sensibly run from an invertor.
Does anyone have any tips/advice or potentially alternative machines to consider?
Thank you.
Edited to say that I have looked quite hard for a non-handheld spot welding station in single phase and can't find one, except for a reference in this post: https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/single-phase-spot-welder.33848/
Currently the most powerful single phase machine I can find is hand-held and I just don't know if it will up up to the jobs I want for it: https://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/spot-welder-tecna-7902
Are the handheld ones any good - specifically, if I got a higher-end one would it be capable (subject to reach) of creating a spot weld of similar strength to a car factory? I'm aware of the trick with spot welding aluminium of sandwiching two pieces of steel as shown in this video:
I'm doing more and more car body repair and while the trusty MIG has been great (and I now have a nice TIG set to use too), I'm very interested in a spot welder to replace factory panels with proper spots rather than puddle welds, which are fine - but the cleaner spots would help me work a lot faster and cleaner.
I'm looking more towards a spot welding station with a lead than a hand held device.
My searches keep leading me to a Tecnica Scorpion. They seem to be about £4k new, and readily available at around £1k used. The basic setup looks fine - though I would need to buy extra arms to reach different places. Similarly I would want the slide hammer/dent puller attachment. Based on my experience with R-tech, who are a Tecnica supplier, and were phenomenal in servicing/repairing my second hand TIG set, II would most likely buy used and have it sent straight to them for servicing. So a reasonable budget seems to be about £1500 for a used, but checked/serviced setup
The material I want to work with is usually 0.8-2mm thick steel and 1-1.2mm thick aluminium - I can't actually tell from any tech specs if this machine can 'do' aluminium.
I'm aware the scorpion is 415v and I only have single phase in the workshop and don't know if such a machine can be sensibly run from an invertor.
Does anyone have any tips/advice or potentially alternative machines to consider?
Thank you.
Edited to say that I have looked quite hard for a non-handheld spot welding station in single phase and can't find one, except for a reference in this post: https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/single-phase-spot-welder.33848/
Currently the most powerful single phase machine I can find is hand-held and I just don't know if it will up up to the jobs I want for it: https://www.r-techwelding.co.uk/spot-welder-tecna-7902
Are the handheld ones any good - specifically, if I got a higher-end one would it be capable (subject to reach) of creating a spot weld of similar strength to a car factory? I'm aware of the trick with spot welding aluminium of sandwiching two pieces of steel as shown in this video:
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