Home Made Welding Machine

Being on the ground in Nairobi makes it a little easier to find good AfriGadget stories. I took a walk down Ngong road, an area with a lot of shadetree mechanics, wood carvers and metal fabricators. The first place I stopped at had a home made welding machine.

Simon, the shop owner, showed me a couple of the machines and gave a video tour of how it works. He’s a prime example how an entrepreneur in Africa will figure out ingenious solutions to meet local market demands. The welders sell for around 14,000 Kenya Shillings (just over $200), but fabrication costs only a small fraction of that.

Below is the video and some pictures. (Another video will be uploaded later, connection speed issues preclude me uploading another one right now).


DIY Welder

Home Made Welding Machine in Nairobi, Kenya

Home Made Welding Machine - Parts

Send in your stories of African ingenuity here.

Author: Erik Hersman

Erik is the owner of White African, a blog about technology and Africa. He is the co-founder of Zangu, a new web and mobile phone application that he hopes will change communication in Africa. AfriGadget is another web project of his, not that he doesn't have enough of those already...

59 thoughts on “Home Made Welding Machine”

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  8. This is brilliant. I just love the ingenuity of these people, it is the same in Fiji and other similar parts of the world they just use what they have to make something and yet what they make is efficient and very effective.

    Mark Bowness

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  10. I once made a improvised welding machine using the case of a big truck battery filled with salt water with a couple of copper rods wrapped in electrical wire inside the water, and it worked.

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