Mason and machine:
North Carolina bricklayers
take center stage nationally
North Carolina Construction News staff writer
North Carolina bricklayers had a
prominent role at the SPEC Mix
Bricklayer 500, the world’s largest
competition of bricklayers, which
concluded with a grand champi-
onship at the World of Concrete in
Las Vegas in January.
While competitors from else-
where in the world won the grand
prize in the competition, a recent
New York Times (NYT) profile gave
top billing to 2017 defending cham-
pion Matt Cash, who works for
Huntley Brothers Company, Inc. in
Mint Hill.
6 — March-April 2018 — The North Carolina Construction News
“I’m on the edge of crazy when
I’m laying brick,” the NYT quoted
Cash as saying, in an article outlin-
ing the longer-range competition
James Huntley of Huntley Brothers company
won the first place prize in the first year
apprentice category in the Masonry
Contractors Association of America’s
Masonry Skills Challenge.
between humans and robotics in
the masonry industry.
Cash last year won a 2017 F-250
4×4 XLT Super Duty Truck and
$15,000 worth of cash and prizes.
Meanwhile, competition organiz-
ers say the youngest person ever to
win the grand prize was Garrett
Hood of Monroe, who achieved the
feat in 2008 when he was 23.
The NYT profile described the
competition’s intensity as it raised
the questions about the trade’s
evolution, with new robotic equip-
ment automating the process
through SAM (semi-automated
mason) machinery – though un-
doubtedly this year’s results re-
vealed that the machinery is still no
substitute for human trade skills.
Of course, SPEC Mix Bricklayer
500 finalists achieve productivity
levels generally unseen on any ac-
tual construction site. As thou-
sands watched, the bricklayers
built a stretch of wall that the NYT
says “would be a day’s work for a
mason building at a normal pace.”
SAM machinery still cannot do
much more than lay brick in a
straight line, but automation may
have its place, as the National As-
sociation of Home Builders (NAHB)
says in a survey that nearly two-
thirds of bricklaying contractors are
struggling to find enough workers.
It takes three or four years of ap-
prenticeship for a person without
experience to fully qualify as a jour-
neyman. The automated equipment alter-
native is expensive and still scarce.
The machines cost about $400,000
each – prohibitively expensive for
smaller contractors, and the NYT
says there are so far only 11 of
them in use. As well, SAM still re-
quires less skilled workers “to load
its brick, refill its mortar and clean
up the joints of the bricks it lays.”
Of course, the equipment does-
n’t get sick, thirsty or tired. “It’s not
whether or not we win in the first
hour,” the NYT quoted Scott Peters,
president of Construction Robotics,
the maker of the machine, as say-
ing. “We’d just like to see them in
the fourth hour.”
Robotic equipment could ease
construction cost pressures, and
perhaps help the industry deal with
the labor shortage.
“The machines will never re-
place the human,” Buczkiewicz said
in the NYT interview. “They will
help down the road and they will
make it that we won’t need as
many workers, but given the short-
ages we’re seeing now, that’s prob-
ably a good thing.”
However, he added: “There’s a
human element to a craft that you
don’t get from a robot.”
And in North Carolina, at least,
young people who commit to the
apprenticeship process likely will
have long and lucrative careers
ahead. Click here for a related video.
2017-2018 edition
The North Carolina Construction News — March-April 2018 — 7