The 2022 Apprentice Competition will be held in Denver, hosted by the St. Louis and Vicinity District Council and held at Local 24, 5575 Tejon Street, Denver, CO 80221.
Click here for the 2022 Participant Agenda Summary
Apprenticeship Competition
Click here for the 2022 "outside" contest rules
Click here for the 2022 "shopmen" contest rules
Who should attend?
Coordinators, business managers, JAC reps and management reps.
National Apprentice Competition
The National Apprentice Competition consists of eight different competitions. The individual competitions are written test, layout instruments, welding, burning, knot tying, rod tying, ornamental and the column climb.
Written Test
The written test consists of 100 questions taken directly from the apprentice training manuals.
Instrument Test
The instrument test requires competitors to set up an instrument, establish the height of instrument and figure the elevation of benchmarks above and below the height of instrument.
Burning Competition
The burning competition requires apprentice competitors to correctly lay out and burn a circle and square make a bevel cut and a straight cut. Contestants are judged on accuracy of layout and cut as well as quality of cuts.
Welding Competition
Apprentices must complete three passes in all four positions: flat, horizontal, vertical and overhead. The welds are graded based upon quality.
Knot Tying
For the knot tying competition, the competitors are required to correctly tie six knots chosen at random from the rigging manual the day of the test. They also must correctly reeve two sets of blocks (3 x 3, 3 x 2, or 2 x 2).
Rod Tying
The rod tying competition is always exciting. Competitors have one minute to tie as many of each different type of tie as they can. The ties are snap tie, snap and a wrap, saddle tie, saddle and a wrap, and the figure 8 tie. The scores that an apprentice gets on each tie are tallied to give him or her overall score.
Ornamental
In this time-based test, contestants race against the clock to see who can put together a 2-foot-by-2-foot glazed window.
Column Climb
Contestants race to the top of a 35-foot column. The fastest gets all the points.