•Vacuum brazing and electron beam welding qualification.•Machine and assembly strategy of fin type heat exchanger.•Soldering and joint resistance test of superconducting joint.•Pre-preg technology with vacuum bag on insulation. Three types of high temperature superconducting current leads (HTSCL) are designed to carry 68kA, 55kA or 10kA to the ITER magnets. Before the supply of the HTS current lead series, the design and manufacturing process is qualified through mock-ups and prototypes. Seven mock-ups, representing the critical technologies of the current leads, were built and tested successfully in the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) in 2013. After the qualification some design features of the HTS leads were updated. This paper summarizes the qualification through mock-ups. In 2014 ASIPP started the manufacture of the prototypes. The preparation and manufacturing process are also described.