Have you ever had a wild idea about a great vacation?  'Fishhead Denis Hildebrand had a great idea recently, and he's just back from making it happen:  a week as an apprentice in the WeFunk factory with "der Professor", Alex Luxat.  Alex and his crew welcomed Denis like a brother, got him on a speedboard within hours of his arrival and put him to work.  Here's his story, and an unprecedented peek inside the WeFunk labs:

I am Denis Hildebrand, a Brazilian living in Scotland. I work here as a volunteer while I study “curative education”, which involves working with special needs (handicapped people).  I love to travel and last March, when I was planning something for my short Easter holidays (1st April – 10th April), I hit upon the idea to contact Alex Luxat (Wefunk) to find out if he would be willing to give me an opportunity to come over to Germany and spend some time involved with the board building process.

I’m 22 years old and the kind of person who is very active, looking for things to do, fix or etc... I’ve always had good craft skills and a lot of creativity. One of my favourite things is woodworking. I have always being fascinated with it, but don’t ask me why. I love to design, and the feeling of making something you create is just inexplicable. Well I think that’s already enough of me, and now let’s talk some skateboarding.  After I joined the Silverfish Longboarding forums, I became fascinated with the Board Building Section and that triggered in me an urge to build skateboards, too.  However, not being an expert on the matter, I thought that being involved with professional board builder would make a lot of sense, as I would gain lots of experience. 

I received a fast reply to my inquiry from Alex, who said it would be also a nice experience for him to have an apprentice in his workshop.!  He also mentioned  that he would have lots of work to be done; therefore a help would be very appreciated.

1st of April (Sunday).  At half past ten in the morning, I arrived in Germany and gave Alex a ring to inform him that I was going to be a bit later then the expected. Nevertheless, for some reason Alex thought I was only coming on Monday. Ten minutes later, I get a ring from Alex, apologising for his misunderstanding and the great news that he and some other guys from the Wefunk Team were going to the Eifel (a middle mountain range), which is a spot where the European Downhill Championship took place.  They figured to pick me up and take me along,  which was not a bad idea at all!

 It was an amazing day, lots of sunshine and warmth. I believe that it was about 25c degrees or more. There I met some of the guys from the team and also the others guys that were there with us. However, as we were getting ready to skate, I reviewed one “minor detail”:  I’d never ridden a downhill board and never gone faster than 25 mph!  I didn’t mention anything, but they could see I didn’t have a downhill board or safety equipment. Yet, I was in luck, for Alex offered me his Topbone. I was actually very afraid and frustrated, as I had in mind that it was going to be a disaster. Nevertheless, after my first run, which went really well, I was so stoked that I wanted to have another go. Great things were going very well, until I decided that I had to try a bit faster which was not the cleverest idea one can have. Result: went too fast on the bend and ended up falling onto my left shoulder, which was sore for few days. So, if you never done downhill in your life and if you are willing to do so, first get some good protection. Lesson learned on my part.

It was a great day, with lots of things to do and to learn. I was amazed and stoked with all the process and techniques used to make a Speedbone.  We worked on one --ordered by A-Drain, of course. However the best of it is the fact that it was not just a Speedbone it was a Black Speedbone!

 

 

 

Consequently, we worked a lot throughout the week, making more Speedbones, mini cruisers, and lots of other things, and of course the essential cigarette breaks, enjoying the sunshine outside nearby the lovely girls. 

One of the best things during this apprenticeship was to see that most of Alex’s work is done by hand. There is no machinery, apart of a jig-saw and a CNC machine which cuts the foam cores. (I have a video of the CNC cutting the foam core, which will be uploaded in youtube later on and posted in the Photos and Videos section), I thought that most of his work was actually done by machinery, but it was amazing to see the whole process of laying different kinds of fibre-glasses with wood-ply, epoxy resin, carbon fibre, foam cores and etc.

This week, with no doubt ,has been one of my best times ever.  I learned a lot of things, got stoked by Alex’s skills and care for each single board he makes, trying to get them as best as possible, where every single detail is extremely important. I would like to say here once more a big thanks to Alex who is a super friendly guy.

Friday: beginning of Easter holiday. Consequently, the workshop was closed and it was time to skate!  This was great, as we had from Friday until Monday of skateboarding time. Thus, off we went for some downhill sessions again, where the weekend holiday was divided into downhill sessions and a session at the North Brigade Park in Cologne, and at a local mini ramp.

Easter Sunday was also a great day, where I was very lucky to be invited to come for Easter lunch at Alex’s parents’ house, where we had a fantastic dinner cooked by Alex’s mother. (That was so delicious).  This was a short resume of my lucky apprentice holidays in Germany. I hope you have enjoyed the story.

There's more!  Denis took some great shots of his speedboard outings with Alex and the WeFunk crew.  Check them out in Denis Hildebrand's "Vacation at WeFunk" gallery.   Have you gone or done something killer with longboards that you'd like to tell the rest of us about?  Did you take photos?  Contact our own indentured servant, EBasil.  We'll get your story up as soon as he's done scrubbing floors.