Who writes this

Jean-Benoit Buisson

Every page on this site is written and signed by one person. This page says who, how the judgements are reached, and — just as importantly — what he is not.

How I got here

À ÉCRIRE PAR JEAN-BENOIT. Deux ou trois paragraphes : d'où vient l'intérêt pour le métal et la soudure, quel a été le premier achat regretté (le poste de trop peu d'ampères, la meuleuse sans frein), et ce qui a déclenché l'envie de comparer sérieusement. Ce sont des affirmations vous concernant, sur lesquelles des lecteurs fonderont un achat de plusieurs centaines d'euros — elles ne peuvent pas être écrites à votre place. Ce bloc est volontairement visible : il ne doit pas pouvoir partir en production.

What this site covers

Everything listed here is taken from the catalogue of this site, and each entry links to its own page. When the catalogue changes, this list changes with it. It is a list of what is covered — not a list of what I own.

What I actually own

À ÉCRIRE PAR JEAN-BENOIT. La liste, courte, des machines et accessoires que vous possédez réellement — et rien d'autre. Sur le réseau bois, ce titre coiffait le catalogue entier : la page affirmait la possession des 149 produits du site, trois paragraphes avant d'écrire que vous n'aviez pas fait tourner toutes ces machines. Une liste vide vaut mieux qu'une liste fausse, et deux lignes vraies valent mieux que les deux. Ce bloc est volontairement visible : il ne doit pas pouvoir partir en production.

What I am not

I am not a certified welder, a fabricator by trade, or a machine technician, and I have never worked for a manufacturer or a dealer. I hold no welding qualification and no coding certification. If you are looking for someone whose authority comes from a job title, this is not that site.

Nor have I personally run every machine on this site. Nobody writing about twelve categories of metalworking machinery has, and the sites that imply otherwise are the ones to distrust. What each judgement rests on is stated on the page it appears on — see how this site reaches a verdict.

How I work

Every figure names its source: a manufacturer specification, a manual, a standard, or the weight of long-term owner reports.
No price, product reference or specification is ever invented. Where a figure is missing, the field is left empty and the gap is stated on the page.
Product references are verified against Amazon before publication, per market. Where a model is not sold in your country, you are sent to a local search rather than to a page that does not exist.
Where the cheap option wins, the page says the cheap option wins — and where the honest answer is a fixture you should make from offcuts rather than buy, it says that instead.

Why this site exists

Because welding machinery is sold on the wrong numbers. A welder is advertised on its maximum amperage, which almost nobody uses, rather than on its duty cycle at a stated temperature and on the quality of its wire feed — which decide every bead you will ever lay with it. Plasma cutters are sold on a severance thickness that leaves an edge you cannot weld. And consumables — the wire, the contact tip, the gas flow — are treated as afterthoughts when they are usually the actual fix.

There is also a part of this that is not about buying anything. Welding fume has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the IARC since 2017, mild steel included; the harmful fraction is the part you cannot see, and it is the one subject a workshop full of exciting machines is guaranteed to skip. It is not skipped here.

Correcting me

If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it and date the correction on the page. Write to [email protected].

Jean-Benoit Buisson · Montrollet, France