Medway welder, 22, wins national competition

LINCOLN – Joel Stanley II knows from thousands of hours of hard work that there’s no such thing as a perfect weld.

Seams in the metal can split or fray. Welds on extreme stress points can crack. Patches can fatigue. Tolerances can be misjudged. But the 22-year-old Medway man can take comfort that – at least according to the American Welding Society – he’s the country’s most perfect welder.

Stanley won two gold medals and $40,000 at the American Welding Society/Skills USA Open Welding Trial last week in Dallas and will represent the United States in a world welding competition in Helsinki, Finland, on May 22. He defeated 12 competitors from six states and from Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Thailand and Great Britain in the national competition, which is open to welders from foreign countries.

As far as anyone at Northern Penobscot Tech Region III knew Monday, Stanley is the first New Englander to be the overall winner and U.S. representative to the World Skills Competition.

“I’m totally excited about this and anxious to get over there,” Stanley said Monday. “I think it’s going to be a tough competition, but I am looking forward to it. I feel pretty laid-back and pretty confident about competing.”

The Region III adult education student, who graduated from Schenck High School and Eastern Maine Community College, spent an entire year practicing at Region III on nights and weekends to prepare for the competition. He is employed as a welder by Fastco Corp. in Lincoln.

Stanley “has a very detailed understanding of the welding process,” Region III welding teacher David Hartley said. “He really knows how welding works, how amperage and voltage affect the weld puddle and how to apply that knowledge.”

Region III Director Al Dickey agreed, adding that much of Stanley’s success is attributable to Hartley’s tutelage.

“I think that Joel is a remarkable student who has put an amazing amount of time and preparation into this,” Dickey said. “You don’t see a guy or a teacher willing to do the kind of preparation that they have done together.”

Welding is the art of using flame or electricity to superheat and graft together pieces of metal. Welders use drops of molten metal, or filler metal, like candle wax to build welds by filling seams between pieces of metal.

Stanley’s approach is almost scientific, Hartley said. He keeps detailed notebooks of welding techniques that he refers to, and his welds resemble pointillist art for their meticulous placement of welds, like metal beads.

He works long hours and he’s very intense about it, said his fiancee, 22-year-old Crystal Strout.

“I watched him working one night,” Strout said. “I must have stood there for an hour and he didn’t even notice me.”

The contest entailed Stanley’s using detailed welding blueprints to build four constructs of steel, stainless steel, aluminum, and a pressure vessel of mixed metals that contest judges tested with X-rays. They also timed him and were amazed at how quickly he completed some projects, Hartley said.

Stanley will travel to a Northrop Grumman Corp. factory in Georgia on Wednesday to begin two weeks’ training for the world competition, he said. The company will pay all of his Helsinki expenses.

The competition is seen as a chance to show American industrial prowess to the world.

“They expect you to be very committed and on time because they are putting a lot of money into this,” Stanley said.