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ESAB’s FDTC welding competition raises $10,000 for student scholarship fund

In keeping with the FDTC Welding Sculpture Competition’s nature theme, third-place professional team Singleton Steel Co. built a fanciful lily pad.

For the sixth consecutive year, ESAB Welding & Cutting Products sponsored the Florence-Darlington Technical College Welding Sculpture Competition to support the school’s welding education program and student scholarship fund. This year's competition, held April 11 at the Francis Marion University Arts International Festival, hosted 10 teams of professional welders and welding students from across the region who competed to create welded sculptures from scrap metal. The artwork, which fit the competition’s nature theme, was auctioned off to raise $10,000 for welding scholarships at FDTC.

The daylong event tested the technical cutting and welding skills of the competitors and challenged the teams to be creative and organized. The resulting sculptures were judged by a panel of local artists.

The three top professional teams—Nucor Steel, General Electric, and Singleton Steel Co.—won ESAB welding and cutting equipment and personal protection products.

The winning amateur team of Dillon ATECH was awarded four ESAB Warrior Tech autodarkening welding helmets and a certificate for $5,000 worth of their choice of ESAB equipment. The second- and third-place amateur division teams—Florence Career Center and Darlington County Institute of Technology (DCIT)—won ESAB welding helmets and up to $2,500 in ESAB products.