R-Tech Welding Equipment were delighted to be invited to attend Sussex Coast College for their 1st Welding Skills Challenge. We have been supplying the college with welding machines for a number of years and it was a great opportunity for us to meet and greet the staff and students to obtain an even greater understanding of their needs. The college has fantastic workshop facilities and very friendly and knowledgeable staff. Once we had set up in the morning we were briefed as to the itinerary for the day. Throughout the day we ran Plasma Cutting demonstrations and let everyone have a play at cutting things up! We were also there to speak to the students about our range of machines and offer advise on setting up.

The competition ran from 12-4 pm.  They ran 2 skill levels on the day.

Level one had 16 competitors who had to complete Level one test piece MAG MMA Welding FINAL and Level one test piece TIG Welding FINAL. Level two had 9 competitors who had to complete Level TWO test piece Welding FINAL. They were given an hour to complete these tasks and we have to say that the level of skill was very high from everyone.

The marking criteria the judges looked for was consistency and uniformity of the welds also the welded beads showed no signs of fault (such as porosity, cracks, undercutting etc.) the parent material had to be square and aligned correctly to each other as well as being laid out correctly, as per the drawings. The winning candidates showed that over 90% of the welding was completed and the completed piece met the aforementioned criteria.

At the end of the day there was a definite tension in the air as we all awaited the results. R-Tech Welding vouchers were up for grabs for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Congratulations to the winners of the competition:

Level 1;

  • First Place: Ricky Lavender
  • Second Place: Peter Bolland
  • Third Place: Jamie Rhodes

Level 2;

  • First Place: Chris Gisby
  • Second Place: Sam Winskill
  • Third Place: Julian Rudd

We would like to thank Sussex Coast College for inviting us down for the day and for looking after us (the sandwiches went down a treat!). Many thanks to Sarah from the college who took some great photos through out the day, Les from facilities for assisting Mark and Scott from TONK for coming along to the event. Also a very special thank you to Mark Pankhurst for making it all happen. We will be looking forward to next years challenge.

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