March 12, 2010

RYAN WEBER / SPEC MIX

Ken Rutley (right), a partner in Mayzes Masonry, and Adam Giesbrecht took second prize at the 2010 Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 National bricklaying championship in Las Vegas.

FOCUS | Concrete & Masonry

Alberta team wins silver at U.S. bricklaying championship

PETER KENTER

correspondent

A Canadian bricklaying team was named among the world’s best at the 2010 Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 National bricklaying championship held at the Las Vegas Convention Center last month.

Ken Rutley, a partner in Mayzes Masonry of Medicine Hat, Alta. and his tender, Adam Giesbrecht, took second prize in the international competition, part of the 2010 World of Concrete/World of Masonry trade show.

The competition requires contestants to lay as many bricks as possible on a 26-foot, double-row brick wall in 60 minutes. The walls are evaluated by 20 experienced masons who can deduct “brick points” for deficiencies in joint thickness and plumb, or for lipped or overhanging bricks, irregular construction and voids in the mortar.

Rutley, who was sponsored by Canadian Spec Mix licensee Target Products Ltd., laid 818 bricks with no deductions and took home US$4,000 in cash and assorted prizes, including a steel chop saw and a bag of masonry tools. He placed just behind winner Garrett Hood and tender Kevin Hallman of North Carolina, who scored 911 bricks. Hood actually laid 1,011 bricks but was penalized a 100-brick count.

It was Rutley’s third appearance at the event in which 20 contestants are selected from 13 regional North American competitions. Rutley took first place at the 2009 Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 regional competition for western Canada at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary in November.

The other Canadian competitors were Graziano Comin and his tender Kristopher Comin of Solroc Contracting and Masonry Inc. of Burlington, Ont. The pair won the eastern Canada regional championship held at Conestoga College in Waterloo, ON in October and were sponsored by Forwell Materials of Kitchener.

“During this competition I was a little more calm and collected than I was the first time,” says Rutley. “They sure put on a big show with roughly 4,500 people in the stands. The music helps to key you up and some of my friends were cheering me from the stands to give me an extra push as well.”

After a solid hour of construction, Rutley says he wasn’t feeling any pain — which arrived later that night. “The adrenalin was really running through me after the competition so you’re feeling really good,” he recalls. “Later on it’s the legs and back, not the arms, that hurt the most because you’re working for the most part in a crouching position.”

Rutley notes that the competition is truly a team event. Giesbrecht, an apprentice who works for the company, must prepare the bricks and mortar and maintain a steady and measured supply of both.

“Adam has to keep up with me and stay just one brick ahead of what I’m laying,” says Rutley.

“He tempers the mortar and places the bricks in my hand, on their sides, so I don’t have to flip them as I set them on the wall. Every split second counts.”

Giesbrecht also came in second in the Spec Mix Toughest Tender competition, in which tenders race the clock to set up bricks for the competition. Giesbrecht trailed winner Aaron Cooke of Ohio by a mere two seconds.

Rutley says that he initially devoted a lot of time to developing a technique for quick and accurate competitive bricklaying, building up and tearing down walls until he got it right. He now keeps in practice with occasional training rounds and daily masonry projects... but not at the breakneck speed of a brick every 4.5 seconds.

“If I could keep that up, I’d be making a lot more money,” he laughs.

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