Mark Douglass of Lincoln Electric’s additive division talks about 3D-printing big parts

“We make big metal parts—usually measured in feet or meters—and weighing hundreds or thousands of pounds,” said Mark Douglass, Business Development Manager of Lincoln Electric’s Additive Solutions division.

Some of these parts—3D-printed using WAAM (wire-arc additive manufacturing) technology—were on display at the Lincoln Electric booth at FABTECH, held last month in Chicago. Among them was a hollow-blade propeller 5 feet in diameter and an aerospace mold that would take “many weeks” to machine, but that was built by the WAAM process in about a week, said Douglass.

Besides discussing what the company offers, Douglass shared his views on the growing appeal of additively manufacturing large parts and countered the common notion that, when it comes to AM, “the complexity is free.”