Thanks for the input. I have continued to fiddle with this and am now making very satisfactory spot welds. The tabs I have welded on old nicad batteries are secure and when I peel them off the battery the failures look like the failures on the old factory battery tabs I removed when I started this. ...

Aluminum and some stainless steels are not magnetic, so for non magnetic materials pick-up magnets won't work. Permanent magnets are made from materials that hold their magnetism and act as indicated in an earlier post: they clamp on until a lever or something is actuated to push the material away f...

With all the welding equipment I have, there must be some way I can rig up something to allow rebuilding battery packs for my cordless tools. I end up with multiple drills because a kit with a tool, battery and a charger costs just a bit more than a replacement battery itself. I want to standardize ...