That's awesome man!

My friend and I have been toying with the idea of making a portable welder for our trips to the woods. With air-cooled VW motors, we don't have the luxury of adding big amp alternators without lots of fab work for something in the way, so we're thinking of a different approach.

We're thinking of using a side shaft lawnmower motor to turn an alternator. This could be mounted to a steel frame with handles and strapped into one of the cars. We're also considering adding an old A/C compressor with a swappable belt to be able to inflate tires or maybe even run an air tool (need a tank for that though).

I have an old Ford externally regulated 140 amp alt. In my research, I've found we can bypass the regulator for welding, and use the regulated output as a battery charger/booster if we wanted to. The only question is I'm not sure how much HP it takes to make 140 amps of electricity.

When you strike an arc, does it drag your engine RPM's down?