We’ve got to say that the sweep of the locking handle looks very ergonomic, and we like the way closing down the handle activates the current pulse.

A key to good-quality spot welds is solid physical pressure between the electrodes, which is provided by a leverage-compounding linkage as well as the long, solid-copper electrodes. With the electrical end worked out, the rest of the build concentrated on the housing. What’s neat is that they used a pair of transformers to boost the current considerably - they reckon the current at 1,000 A, making the machine capable of welding stock up to 4 mm thick.

The electronics are deceptively simple - just rewound microwave oven transformers and a simple timer switch to control the current pulse. We expect, though, that this sturdy-looking spot welder will show up in a future video, because it really looks the business, and seems to work really well. We haven’t featured anything from our friends over at, where they’re as much about building tools as they are about using them to build other things, if not more so. But as with many things, the devil is in the details, and building a proper spot welder can be as much about addressing those details as seeing to the basics. If you dump enough current through two pieces of metal very quickly, they’ll heat up enough to melt and fuse together. On the face of it, a spot welder is a simple device.

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