On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:44:53 GMT, Ignoramus5923
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:31:39 -0600, Thomas Kendrick wrote:
I'm gonna vote NO. A stick welder has the electrical circuitry built
into it to tolerate a dead short. That's what happens when the stick
electrode gets stuck to the work piece with the ground clamp attached
as well. Same thing when one is used to thaw a frozen pipe. The
voltage droops and the metal involved gets warmer to very hot in the
case of the small electrode. The resistance is fairly low.

I think that the OP was referring to starting the welder with
batteries, not to running it with batteries.

That was my understanding as well.