built like a battleship

[MrFriggsit]

Made a visit to the Battleship New Jersey yesterday. As an amateur welder I was amazed at the amount of steel around me! I've never seen so much steel and welding in one spot. Everywhere I turned I could see examples of expert welds. Does anyone know how the steel hull would have been welded? The tourguide (a retired vet from the battleship) said they were welded, 16 inches thick. The ships conning tower was welded 20 inches thick! I guess all they had was stick welding back in the 40's right?

[Franz]

She was stick welded all right, and stick welding was in it's infancy when she was built.
Do a search for Kaiser + liberty ship + welding, and you should get some good information on the problems encountered with welding ships back in those days.
Kaiser was the pioneer in welding ship plate, and it didn't take long to learn welded hulls couldn't compete with riveted hulls in the Arctic Sea.
A lot of stick welding improvements occurred during World War II.