Metal workers display skills

Watch fourth-year sheet-metal apprentices carefully manipulate copper into a marinethemed piece of art as they compete to be the best at Ship Point on the Inner Harbour.

The 43rd Canadian Sheet Metal Workers and Roofers Apprenticeship Competition will be held today (sheet metal) and Friday (roofers) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

It’s all part of the annual conference for the Canadian branch of the SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers union, being held at Victoria’s Delta Ocean Pointe hotel.

The competition includes the best sheet-metal and roofing apprentices in the union chosen from across Canada. There will be 11 sheet-metal apprentices and eight roofers competing.

Ryan Elder, of Sooke, who apprentices at Lewis Sheet Metal in Victoria and studied at Camosun College, Interurban campus, will be representing Vancouver Island local 276 today.

Bruce Scheltgen, of Courtenay, who apprentices at Nelson Roofing & Sheet Metal in Courtenay and studied at the Roofing Contractors Association of B.C. in Langley, will be in the roofing competition on Friday.

The projects that the competitors will be asked to create were revealed to competitors on Wednesday night.

The tradition is that before the apprentices go on to ply their trades as Red Seal approved workers, they create their masterpieces.

In past years, the sheetmetal apprentices have had to make a fountain in Ottawa and a fiddle on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

The pieces are made from copper.

“You really have to have great hand skills to work with copper, otherwise it dents,” said Rick Carter, local 276 apprentice co-ordinator.

“Brass and copper look beautiful and shiny when they are completed.”

Roofers will have two types of roofs to complete using oneand two-ply systems.