SRSS student wins gold at Skills Canada national competition
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Steinbach Regional Secondary School student Connor Brick just won nationals at Skills Canada in cabinet making.
“It feels amazing. I didn’t think I would be getting a gold medal at nationals, but I was so surprised when they called my name for gold,” he said, adding, “I was exhausted. After two days of competition, 11 hours of working time in total, I was a bit gassed.”
To prepare for the competition, Brick managed his time by working on different aspects of his project, a campaign desk, while glue dried or judges were rating his pieces.
“There was a lot more details we had to do – an additional box that sits inside the main box that has dovetail joints in all the corners that added a level of complexity. The legs were also more complex instead of having one dowl and glue the legs onto the piece that keeps them spread apart, we had to make a tenon that goes through the legs and then another mortise through the tenon that holds a tusk that keeps it tight,” said Brick.
“I felt pretty good about my dovetails and I felt pretty good about the overall fit and finish. I did make a couple of small mistakes but tried not to let those distract me during the competition.”
The 18-year-old started doing woodworking in Grade 9, but has only been doing cabinet making for one year. What he learned about himself from the competition is that he has what it takes to be in a competition of this size, he has stamina, and he works well under pressure.
“The fact that he learned something about himself and he learned something about communicating with judges because these guys he didn’t know, he was communicating with them and did a really good job. How he handled himself was very mature, and how he handled his questions that was really mature, and how he handled the pressure that was also really mature,” said woodworking teacher Merle Schmidt.
Brick plans on a career in carpentry building homes but he said jokingly if the winters are too cold and his back hurts he will switch to cabinetmaking.
