The Great Guitar Build-off
Alvaro Balderrama Chiappe
Alvaro Balderrama Chiappe is an architect with a masters degree in engineering, working at a research lab in Detmold - Germany. He started building instruments in Bolivia in 2009 when he built his first acoustic guitar without training or specialized tools. For the next eight years, he built acoustic guitars, bass guitars and ukuleles completely from scratch. He also repaired dozens of guitars as the guitar-tech/luthier that some local stores would refer to. The next couple of years after moving to Germany, he built semi-hollow guitars and basses using CNC routing and 3D printing at the FabLab of the University, where he also conducted guitar making workshops until the lockdown of 2020. After the home-office situation was established, there wasn't a workshop to work at. Then, the Great Guitar Build Off 2020 was announced as a good opportunity to get in touch with the guitar making community, so ABC Guitar Workshop was released on YouTube and Instagram. After renting some square meters in a local warehouse, the solid-body electric guitar the Detmolder was built and presented as an entry for the GGBO, being chosen in Ben Crowes favorite 30 projects. This year, the new workshop will be set up in a basement somewhere in Detmold, where a new version of the Detmolder will be made for the Scratch Build Competition of the Great Guitar Build Off 2021.
You can visit my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX00UpzVi0yDavoIpUj1rqw
You can see the video of my final build here: https://youtu.be/JquV8L9tzeI