This year’s SkillsUSA competition, held on June 27 and 28 in Louisville, Kentucky, featured the debut of nitrogen plastic welding in the Collision Repair Technology segment.
The Collision Repair Technology segment features four hands-on disciplines – plastic repair, metal straightening, metals joining, and structural analysis. This year, Polyvance’s nitrogen plastic welders were used for the first time in the plastic repair portion, complementing two adhesive repairs using 3M two-part adhesives.
Approximately 70 contestants, both high school and college age, went through the plastic repair portion in four groups for 90 minutes each. Each contestant had to complete three different repairs on a polypropylene bumper donated to the competition by General Motors – a three-inch tear in the middle of the bumper with 3M two-part adhesive on front and back, a tab repair using 3M’s super-fast adhesive, and a two-inch tear to the edge of the bumper repaired with Polyvance’s nitrogen plastic welder and polypropylene welding ribbon.
“I was impressed with how competent most of the contestants were with the nitrogen plastic welder, especially considering that this is a fairly new technology and that most schools don’t have a welder yet,” said Polyvance’s president Kurt Lammon. “The welding portion seemed to fit in well with the adhesive repairs – the contestants could weld while the adhesives were curing and work with the adhesives while the welds were cooling,” he continued.
Polyvance congratulates the six winners of the Collision Repair Technology event, three from high school and three from college:
- Gold, High School – Caleb Eyler, Warren County Career Center, Warren, PA
- Silver, High School – Noah Borer, Vanguard-Sentinel CTC, Tiffin, OH
- Bronze, High School – Abagayle Boden, Aims Community College, Greely, CO
- Gold, College – Jonathan Wolfe, Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, Valdosta, GA
- Silver, College – Kyle Ray, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE
- Bronze, College – Juan Alcala, Texas State Technical College, Waco, TX
