The Sturgeon watershed is now home to the best student car painter in Canada after an Onoway man put on a gold-medal performance at nationals last week.
The Sturgeon watershed is now home to the best student car painter in Canada after an Onoway man put on a gold-medal performance at nationals last week.
Onoway's Garrett Weiss took first in post-secondary car painting last May 27 to 30 at the 21st annual Skills Canada National Competition held at Saskatoon's Prairieland Park.
St. Albert's Marko Crepulja came sixth in CNC machining at the event.
Skills Canada is a national organization that promotes jobs in the trades by challenging students to compete against each other in various technical challenges.
Weiss, 19, is in his third year of a four-year auto body technician program at NAIT and was one of some 500 students from across Canada at the event.
Weiss said there were some 120 members of Team Alberta at the contest, making them the second-biggest contingent after Team Ontario. The competitors had plenty of time to chat and party together, and even completed a short Amazing Race-style contest in town.
“I have some new Facebook friends now!”
Tough contest
Crepulja, 19, is headed into a four-year apprenticeship program in machining at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
He said his event at nationals tasked him to carve a complex series of shapes into a chunk of metal using a computer-controlled lathe in just three-and-a-half hours. He managed a similar task at provincials in five hours, but didn't make deadline this time around.
“The parts weren't that hard, but I had some trouble with the software,” he said, as he had practiced on a different version of it.
Weiss's event was a gruelling eight-part challenge that took two 14-hour days to complete.
His first task was to create lime green paint from six different colours – something you almost never do in a body shop, as most paints come pre-mixed, Weiss said.
“It can go so many different ways when you pour the colours in,” he said, and you only had so much of each colour to use. He and many of his competitors agreed that this was the toughest challenge of the event.
The other tasks included tweaking the tint of a metallic paint (something you often do in the field when a paint doesn't quite match a car, Weiss said), masking a brand new 2016 Volkswagen Passat, applying decals and an anti-rock-chip film to a hood, prepping, priming and painting several bumpers, and completing a 20-question exam.
Weiss said he was far too exhausted to party when it was over.
“It's long, tiring days.”
Weiss said he thought he was toast after the paint-mixing event, but got his confidence back with some smooth showings in the others.
“Then when they announced my name, I was like, hoh-lee, I can't believe it!”
Weiss was back at work Monday at Jack's Auto Body in Onoway with his armload of prizes: a gold medal, a $500 scholarship and a set of three limited-edition SATA-brand paint guns worth about $3,000.
“I just used one of them this morning, actually, and it's working awesome.”
Weiss said he's already received numerous job offers as a result of his win, including one to work on Lamborghinis in West Edmonton Mall. He's sticking with Jack's for now, but isn't sure where he'll go next.
“Maybe I'll move to Germany and paint Porsches!”
Weiss thanked the staff at Jack's and his boss, Dave Cooper, for all their support. He hopes to win nationals again next year for a shot at the international Worldskills tournament.
“It's an awesome experience and I'd recommend it to anybody.”
Crepulja also vowed to win nationals next year to get a spot on Team Canada.
“It's definitely a great experience.”
Visit skillscompetencescanada.com for full tournament results.
