Guitar Making with Benito Huipe

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Taranto

Posts: 213
Joined: Apr. 7 2005

Guitar Making with Benito Huipe

Hi,

Has anyone tried this video or has any experience with it?

Thanks, Taranto

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 10 2007 18:05:11

Armando

Posts: 302
Joined: May 27 2005
From: Zürich, Switzerland

RE: Guitar Making with Benito Huipe (in reply to Taranto)

Hi

Yes i have the video and the video is alright. It does show many useful tricks on how to build a flamenco guitar without having to buy expencive tools and machines. What i'm missing in the video is some information about soundboard tuning. I don't know if he does it and if yes how he does it.
The video shows you how to build a guitar but not how you can influence the sound. However the video is recommendable espcially due to the fact that there is still no other instruction video or dvd about flamenco guitar making availlable so far.
Unfortunately i have made bad expericene with Benito Huipe as a person. It's more than a year ago that he wrote me an email telling me that i bought his video about flamenco guitar making. I guess he got that information from fernandezmusic.com where i have purchased the video. He told me that he is currently working on his new website and he is looking for some testimonys of customers who bought the video. He asked me if i was satisfies with the video. I was very surprised and i felt honoured to receive an e mail directly from him. I told him that i was satisfied with the video. As i knew that the paracho makers are often laking access to good quality spruce tops and i was laking of nice palo escrito i offered him to personally to make a small interchange deal. I offerend him to personally select some nice swiss alpine spruce tops and send it to him in change of some nice palo escrito sides and backs. I received a mail back from him that he is very interested in doing the interchange and he promised me to send me some of the finest palo escrito he has. I have sent him two nice swiss spruce tops of fine quality the next day but i have never received any palo escrito sides and backs from him. I have sent him several e mails concerning the issue but he did not answered the mails anymore. I was sure he was ignoring my mails so i wrote him an e mail from another e mail account asking him if he could build me a guitar. A short time after i received an answer from him telling me that he would be very pleased to build a guitar for me. So this was the proof for me that he just ignored my previous mails. Then about one year later, a story about Benito Huipe came up in the spanish foro

http://guitarra.artelinkado.com/foros/showthread.php?t=6300

He personally answered that he was not aware of the deal. His former manager Señor Hernandez was doing the deal with me. He tried to get out of any responsability by blaming his former manager to be responsable for the abuse.
Fact is that i have sent the spruce tops to his address and not the the address of his manager. He answered me all his mails from his mail account and not from that of his manager. As the story became big because it seems that other members of the foro where cheated as well, he answered that he is currently in Los Angeles trying to sell some guitars and he promised to send the wood as soon as he is back in mexico. So far i didn't receiced any wood from him and i'm sure i never will. He seems to be a good lutier but not a very serious person nor does he comply with his promises. That was a disapointing experience with this luthier which i have respected very much before this issue happened.

Armando

_____________________________

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 10 2007 21:13:32

Taranto

Posts: 213
Joined: Apr. 7 2005

RE: Guitar Making with Benito Huipe (in reply to Taranto)

Sad story Arman.

Let me know if you want to sell your copy of the video.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 11 2007 6:08:28

stephen hill

Posts: 300
Joined: Feb. 16 2004
From: La Herradura, Granada, Spain

RE: Guitar Making with Benito Huipe (in reply to Armando)

Thats a tricky situation Armando.
I am looking at creating a new dvd on guitar making soon. Long project but we are going to start. Will make sure there is a section on plate tuning!

_____________________________

stephen hill - granada spain
http://www.spanishguitars.co.uk

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 11 2007 8:50:22

AndrewE

Posts: 56
Joined: Oct. 6 2004

RE: Guitar Making with Benito Huipe (in reply to Taranto)

I recently sold my copy on ebay.

I didn't really get a lot out of the video. It's OK if you want to get a basic idea how the guitar is made. But some of methods/techniques I could not image using and they give the novice the impression that it's easy e.g he squared up a critical fitting part by casually pushing it up to motorized sanding wheel with a flat bed but with no guide to keep it square.

Maybe I'm being too critical but I got this video to help me build my first guitar and basically never found of any real benefit. My references for it were Cumpiano's book, Schramm Hauser course CD rom and many questions to the person who draw the plan.

Andrew

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 13 2007 4:08:19