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Stick welding large structures?

I was watching a show about really big buildings. They were showing the columns being constructed. This involved box sections made in a steel mill. The box sections were made from 3 inch thick plate welded toigether. The show did not show or say how they were welded. I assume submerged arc or something similar. But at the building site the sections were stacked one on top of another and it appeared that the sections were welded together using stick. Welding steel that thick with stick would take so many sticks and so much time it seems to me that some type of wire feed would be best. Am I wrong? Is stick welding really used to weld large structures like these? Thanks, Eric

Reply to
etpm
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Innershield, NR203M, 5/64 dia., 19v 90 ipm.

Reply to
Phil Kangas

Stick is used mostly for tacking and fitting, on structural steel. Suitcase wirefeeders are the standard of the industry.

Large stick electrodes are very rare nowadays. The largest I have seen on a jobsite over the last 10 years was

5/32" 7018.

The one place in structural steel where stick is still king is tacking down steel deckpan for the concrete floors in a building.

6022 rod has survived in this one niche. It is just much faster to use stick for this than a wire feed, because of how much area you have to cover and how little welding is required.
Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

1/16" Self Shielded Flux Core is the size I see the most. I think the shipyards use the larger 5/64".
Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

Thanks everyone who replied to my original post. It appears that even though the TV program only showed stick welding in reality the majority of the welding was done with wirefeed. I wouldn't be surprised if all the close up of stick welding was just stock footage the Discovery Channel had on the shelf. Eric

Reply to
etpm

As someone who just saw his first 'suitcase' wire feeder a week ago... Want to point out that they are *nothing* like the little portable hobbyist grade welders that are becoming so common. Only the wire feeder box is suitcase sized, and shaped, it hooks up to a honking huge power supply just like any other industrial wire feed welder. Ones I saw were diesel...

Reply to
William Bagwell

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