The competition has been run and won to discover who posses the best skills among Australia’s emerging tradies.
World Skills Australia was held in Brisbane in early May to select the top students in their fields to represent Australia at the World Skills International competition being held in London in 2011.
The two representatives of the autobody repair industry to fly the Australian flag are panel beater Daniel Kostakais and spray painter Nathan Crumpton.
Daniel, works for Universal Smash Repairs in Williamstown North, Vic, and studies at Kangan Institute – ACE Centre.
He edged out silver medallist TAFE NSW Hunter Institute student Craig Agnew who is doing his apprenticeship with Mid Coast Smash Repairs in Tuncurry, NSW while bronze went to Wayne Lea who works at Wayne Phipps Smash Repair, Midland, WA and studies at Polytechnic West, Carlisle.
In the car painting section, gold went to Nathan Crumpton who works for Dicker Motors Smash Repairs at North Gosford, NSW and attends the Ultimo College of the Sydney Institute of TAFE.
Silver went to Craig Gillard who works at Metro Paint and Panel, Brendale, Qld and studies at SkillsTech Australia, Ithaca and bronze went to Nathan Florisson of Esperance Smash Repairs, Esperance, WA and studies at Polytechnic West.
The competition saw the panel beaters have to undertake five tasks over the three days of competition.
Sydney TAFE teacher Garry, who accompanied the students from the Ultimo campus, said non of the panel beating competitors were ale to finish all the gruelling tasks before them.
The competition saw beaters have to repair a front support, right hand skirt and rail extension on a Toyota; do a remove and replace on a left hand quarter panel; repair damage to a right hand quarter panel and bonnet repair with hail damage, highlighting the student’s file finishing abilities; and analyse and report on damage to a Toyota RAV4 on a Car-O-Liner bench using the company’s Car-O-Vision measuring system.
For the painters, the competition required them to paint the front end of a Toyota HiLux, edging out the insides of the bonnet and panels for a semi-gloss finish and then finishing the outside secessions with a gold metallic effect, using waterborne basecoat. They also had to perform a small repair to the left hand front of the vehicle that involved priming, colour matching and then blending the colour.
They also had to mask off “GT” stripes on the bonnet, and then paint on the stripes using waterborne base coat, and attach two decals to the bonnet.
