Interested in the future of manufacturing? Don’t miss Additive Manufacturing Advantage: Aerospace, Space and Defense 2026, taking place on July 9th. Mark your calendar and secure your spot at the event redefining what’s possible in aerospace, space, and defense manufacturing.
Lincoln Electric, 130 years old and generating over $4 billion in 2024 revenue, entered the additive manufacturing space in 2019 with a clear thesis: wire arc additive manufacturing, or WAAM, was ready for real production, not just prototyping.
Its additive business unit now operates 26 WAAM systems in Cleveland, Ohio on a 24/7 schedule, and claims to be the only vertically integrated large-format metal additive service provider in the world, covering feedstock, welding equipment, proprietary path-planning software, robotic controls, positioners, in-house machining, and post-print fabrication, with build volumes reaching up to 10 feet in diameter and 10-ton weight capacity.
The technology it is betting on, WAAM, traces its roots to 1920, when inventor Ralph Baker filed a U.S. patent with Westinghouse Electric to build up layers of weld metal into functional objects. What was once manual and niche has since evolved into a fully automated discipline combining gas metal arc welding, industrial robotics, and sophisticated path-planning software, capable of printing complex geometries with precision.
“The concept has been around for a while,” said Mark Douglass, Business Development Manager at Lincoln Electric Additive Solutions. “People have been using weld metal buildup in critical applications for decades, and that really gives a lot of credence to what we are doing today.”
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The Navy’s Gap and WAAM’s Answer
The strategic backdrop is stark. U.S. submarine production collapsed after the Cold War as Congress cut US Navy funding, eroding industrial capacity through offshoring and declining orders. Demand now targets production tonnage 50% above Cold War peaks, while the existing fleet must be stretched beyond its original design life. Traditional casting and forging supply chains cannot keep pace.
This is where WAAM steps in. A 316L stainless steel component for a low consequence of failure Navy application illustrated the gap clearly: the casting route carried a 24+ week lead time and, upon radiographic inspection, returned over 200 rejectable indications, with fist-sized voids in the better of two foundry attempts. Lincoln Electric’s WAAM equivalent was produced in 7 weeks, met ASTM 316L forging specs after solution annealing, and returned zero rejectable indications under Navy weld acceptance criteria—which is more stringent than casting acceptance criteria.
“This really tells a story of what WAAM is capable of,” said Douglass. “Not only speed, but really high quality, and that goes back to the software, precision, robotics, controls, and automation.”
On the valve side, copper-nickel sand castings for Hunt Valve, a subsidiary of Fairbanks Morse Defense, can have high reject rates, with oftentimes significant weld repair required even after material acceptance. WAAM-produced material can cut lead time by over 50% with significantly improved quality. Thanks to its collaboration with Lincoln Electric, Hunt Valve delivered the first 3D printed valve assembly for the U.S. Navy submarines.
Beyond Naval Vessels
WAAM’s defense reach extends to infrastructure. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faced needing to replace a cracked 60-year-old lever arm at the Soo Locks in northern Michigan, a waterway critical to the U.S. economy. Foundries quoted 72 weeks, potentially a two-year wait given the lock’s narrow winter maintenance window. Lincoln Electric delivered a nearly four-meter, 2,700-kilogram replacement in 12 weeks, printed in two sections and welded together by subsidiary Baker Industries. It stands as the largest 3D printed civil infrastructure component in the United States.
“The part might be too large for our system, but you can subdivide it, print it in different pieces which are subsequently joined together, reducing risk, and potentially accelerating delivery,” said Douglass.
In aerospace, the company’s earliest WAAM work involved Invar and steel tooling for composite lay-up tools, including winglet molds for a naval unmanned aerial system (UAS), establishing credibility before the defense pipeline scaled up.
Codes and Standards are Catching Up
The technical case is solid. The regulatory one is progressing but still evolving. AWS is releasing its D20.2 wire-DED specification, the American Petroleum Institute (API) recently revised its AM standard 20S, and both ASME and the U.S. Navy have implemented qualification frameworks that define process controls, testing requirements, and documentation expectations for WAAM. While these specifications improve consistency and enable qualification on a per-material basis, they do not yet establish an industry-wide path for certifying entire families of parts.
“That’s where the opportunity lies,” said Douglass. “If you can eventually qualify a material and process for a defined class of parts, rather than repeating first-article testing every time, you reduce cost, shorten timelines, and accelerate WAAM adoption.”
A Supply Chain Under Pressure and a Policy Response Taking Shape
Lincoln Electric’s push into defense additive manufacturing is not an isolated commercial bet, it reflects a structural shift in how the U.S. military is approaching its manufacturing bottleneck. The casting and forging supply chain that underpins naval shipbuilding has been under sustained pressure for years, and the institutional response is now catching up.
The Navy in particular is moving toward WAAM-based alternatives at scale. The U.S. Navy issued a Letter of Intent to Australian WAAM specialist AML3D projecting demand for up to 100 additive manufacturing systems and 1,600 components by 2030, with forecast transparency explicitly designed to support capacity alignment and reduce dependency on conventional cast or forged components.
The same supply chain logic is driving investment across the defense industrial base. America Makes’ $4.5 million IMPACT 3.0 awards, funded by OSD ManTech, targeted improvements in lead time, productivity, and yield for casting and forging operations using additive manufacturing, with dedicated awards covering WAAM and DED sensing and control, framing additive as a lever inside the legacy industrial processes where the defense industrial base loses the most time and money.
Lincoln Electric’s position within defense is deliberate. As a vertically integrated provider with almost a decade of production-scale WAAM experience, it is not waiting for the supply chain problem to resolve itself. It is building the infrastructure to make large metal parts at scale in order to eliminate supply chain bottlenecks.
Grab your spot today for our AMA: Aerospace, Space, and Defense 2026 online conference on July 9th!
3D Printing Industry is inviting speakers for its 2026 Additive Manufacturing Applications (AMA) series, covering Energy, Healthcare, Automotive and Mobility, Aerospace, Space and Defense, and Software. Each online event focuses on real production deployments, qualification, and supply chain integration. Practitioners interested in contributing can complete the call for speakers form here.
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