“This year has been the most eventful ever for us! We introduced the Steambass which has proven already to be a huge success. We attended Frankfurt Musikmesse, Montreal Guitar Show and Turenki Tonefest. We kept on building guitars and delivering them – despite the added pressure of our shop move that was ongoing most of the year.

May this photo, taken by Emma from our backyard a few days ago, remind us all that there’s also a time to rest. I want to thank you all for this wonderful year and wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012 to all of you on behalf of the Ruokangas Guitars “Elves” and my family!”

- Juha Ruokangas

A lot of exciting Ruokangas related stuff is happening all over the world, and we want to share with you some of the recent highlights!

We’re honored to be featured in an awesome new book called Electrified, by Robert Shaw. The book is really beautiful, loaded with gorgeous photos – recommended reading for anyone interested in high end boutique guitars!

We’re really happy that the guys at Leftyfretz.com have noticed our efforts to offer equal service to all players! Keep up the good work – your website is amazing!

Around the world – it’s all about music! Check out the powerful tone of Matias Kupiainen on the latest Stratovarius video Under Flaming Skies! And how about the soulful sound of Flo Zepf with his Mojo Custom on the Candycream tune Give Love a Chance, featuring on vocals Tony Momrelle!

And then something completely different – Nev is a big name in Turkey – check the YouTube clip and look for a gorgeous ruby red Unicorn Custom.. The warmest regards to our Istanbul retailer Guitar Center – you’re doin’ a great job!

Itching to get a new guitar? A hot tip for all you enthusiasts – take a look at Vintage & Rare, the essential gateway to find the coolest vintage, rare and boutique guitars and guitar gear world wide. Nicolai Schneekloth & your team – keep up the awesome work!

And last but not least, a couple of selected quotes from Ruokangas players. You’ll find more from the testimonials page. Enjoy!

“The Ruokangas team have a real passion for what they do! Every one of my Ruokangas guitars is absolutely awesome. I fell in love. Thank you so much Juha.”
- Bruno Longobardi, France

“I would like to extend my highest accolades possible for the incredible design and workmanship of your guitars!”
- David Miskit, Florida USA

“Ruokangas guitars are instruments for grown-ups!”
- Thorsten Hoffmann, Germany

“I am totally in shock Juha! This is a killer guitar – I have 20 guitars, but this one is the best!!!”
- Michael Pagaard, Denmark

“I have many guitars, some are good, some even great. Then I have the ones I use. They are all Ruokangas guitars.”
- Juha Torvinen, Finland

All you guitar and bass lovers in Germany – head your way to Oldenburg this weekend! The annual Vintage Guitar Show will take place at the Schule am Floetenteich, and Musikhaus Jever will be there with an impressive Ruokangas collection!

The opening hours are: Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 11 am to 4pm. As always, there’s a LOT of guitars to see!

Check out more information from the Vintage Guitar Show website. For those attending – have a great show and tell our best regards to Holger and the rest of the Musikhaus Jever team!

O-hoy all you bass maniacs out there! Markus Setzer will give a masterclass and perform with his trio at Feel The Bass event held at Mannheim Popakademie this Sunday, October 16th! He will have a couple of Ruokangas basses along, so all you interested in demoing the Steambass and enjoy some awesome bass playing, here’s a great chance! Find out more from Feel The Bass website!

Welcome everyone to the first ever Turenki Tonefest! The finest Finnish luthiers and gear manufacturers gather together at this unique event held in our new hometown, at the coolest location imaginable, the historic Turenki Railroad Station, built in 1862 and renovated some years ago back to it’s full original glory!

Turenki is located conveniently right in the middle of the southern Finland so we’re close by no matter if you come from Helsinki, Tampere, Lahti or Turku direction.

The guitars, amps and pedals will be demoed by top Finnish players. The amazing guitar virtuoso Antti Paranko will be there with his Trio demoing Ruokangas instruments – so don’t miss this! You can find more info from the Turenki Tonefest website and Facebook page!

Well – the living could have been easy if we wouldn’t have moved our workshop at the same time! We have a lot of material gathered of the workshop project and as soon as we find the time to organize all that, you’ll find out more…

We also found in some miraculous way time to attend the Montreal Guitar Show (which was a blast, thank you so much for everyone involved!) this summer. As always, we’re making a video of the show for you – and while waiting for that, check out this one – Juha was interviewed by Rebecca Dirks of Premier Guitar at the MGS. Thanks Premier Guitar & Rebecca, thanks Jacques André and the MGS team!

And last but not least – thank you for your patience with us – the shop move has taken it’s toll – e-mails and phone calls haven’t been answered as fast as we would have wanted. The worst is however now behind and we’ll catch up all the delay in no time!

Our long anticipated move to the new location is finally reality! The old Harviala manor facility fits like a glove to our old school philosophy of making guitars, and there’s no doubt that in this beautiful and relaxing atmosphere our creative spirits will soar higher than ever!

We have still quite a bit of tweaking to do in the new shop, so we ask for just a little extra patience if your e-mail isn’t replied as fast as usual or telephone call isn’t answered every time. We’re working hard to get the wheels turning, and we truly appreciate all the support and understanding you’ve given us during these past months – thank you so much, we wouldn’t be here doing what we do without you guys!

The highlight boutique guitar event of the year is close at hand! Juha will bring along some of the most beautiful Ruokangas guitars ever made – including the gorgeous Duke Classic, custom built to the permanent Ste-Cat Collection. See you in Montreal!

We hope you enjoy our Musikmesse 2011 video, featuring performances by Petteri Sariola, Markus Setzer and Uriah Duffy!

The annual Frankfurt Musikmesse – the biggest, baddest & loudest of all guitar shows – is close at hand again! We’ll bring along a jaw-dropping collection of guitars this year, and there will be some cool surprises too! The hottest news is the Steambass – yes, our first bass model – that will be officially launched at the Messe! Here are the spotlight photos of the very first Steambass Classic, custom built for Markus Setzer.

We’re excited to announce that Petteri Sariola and Markus Setzer will be demoing at our booth every day and they’ll also throw a half an hour performance at the Agora Stage on Thursday (7 April) at 10:00. Petteri Sariola has promised us to beat the living daylights out of his custom built Duke Sonic and rest assured – Markus Setzer will show no mercy to the Steambass either!

Juha Ruokangas will be present at the booth every day together with Musikhaus Jever‘s own Holger Hanenkamp, so fear not to come to talk to us – whether you speak German, English or Finnish, we’re well covered. The show time is 6-9 April 2011 and you’ll find us from hall 4.0, booth B47. Warm welcome everyone!

Now it’s official! The Ruokangas workshop will move this summer to Turenki – about half an hour drive up north from our current location. The house is one of the Harviala Manor (Harvialan Kartano) buildings, designed by architect Valter Thomé, built in 1913.

The Harviala Manor history dates back all the way to the 13th century – the first owner was the duke of Finland Bengt Birgersson, son of Birger Jarl the king of Sweden! Now that’s a worthy location for a guitar workshop!

Some of you might have noticed that the guitars section of our site has been partly rebuilt recently. We’ve added exciting new sections such as the spotlight – build processes of cool custom guitars and the features – tons of detailed info about our tonewoods, tuners, bridges and so on. More spotlight projects and features will be added so stay tuned.

For eye candy, visit our photo gallery – new pics are added all the time. The latest additions include a couple of gorgeous Pinkburst Project photos by John Peden – here’s one of them, thanks John!

Those of you yearning to learn more about Juha’s philosophy of guitarmaking, check out the in-depth interview freshly published on the Custom Guitar Boutique blog! And while you’re at it – Kelcey at Custom Guitar Boutique got recently a really cool Duke Artisan to his stock!

We’ve added new audio samples too! Check out the Rainer Nygård page for clips from the Diablo album Icaros – and see the Matias Kupiainen page for clips from the soon-to-be-released Stratovarius album Elysium – here’s one of them, check it out!

We are so honored to be part of the one-of-a-kind Pinkburst Project created by Twisted Sister‘s Jay Jay French to support a good cause – to benefit the research of uveitis, an eye disease his daughter Samantha (photo) has had since age of 6.

Check out also the Premier Guitar in-depth interview with Jay Jay about this unique project, in which most of the iconic American guitar manufacturers were involved. Here’s what Jay Jay says about the Ruokangas involvement:

“I met Juha Ruokangas at a NAMM show and fell in love with his guitars. I bought one for my personal collection. I told him about the project and he wanted to be involved. My girlfriend said, ‘Why would he not be included? You think his guitars are the iconic guitars of the future!’ She was right. Juha is a supreme boutique maker whose heart is in the right place.”

The companies involved in the Pinkburst Project are: Gibson, Fender, Epiphone, Gretsch, PRS, Martin, Marshall, Mesa, Vox, Orange, Hartke, Diamond – and yours truly, Ruokangas. All Pinkburst Project guitars include a custom TKL hardshell case and a custom Red Monkey leather guitar strap.

The Skinner Auction House in Boston will host the Pinkburst Project Auction May 1, 2011, to benefit ongoing work at the Massachusetts Eye Research and Surgery Institution on behalf of the Ocular Immunology and Uveitis Foundation.

This has been a great year for Ruokangas Guitars. We want to thank you all for coming to see us to the shows, visiting the website so much and last but not least for ordering so many guitars that we can continue on our chosen uncompromised path building the best guitars in the world! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011 to you all from the Ruokangas team!

“I often say we build the best electric guitars in the world. This brings upon us a great responsibility as well. Native Americans have a wonderful saying – Enjoy Life’s Journey but Leave No Tracks. I do realize one small company can’t contribute very much to save our planet, but as each one of us does our best, one step at a time, the change will come.” – Juha Ruokangas

Finnish wood species Arctic Birch and Alder are some of the essential build materials of Ruokangas guitars. We enjoy using local wood since we can be absolutely sure that the wood is always harvested from a sustainable source.

The environmental laws are getting tighter every year. That’s good news – none of us wants deforestation to spread if there’s any way to slow it down! We do our best to adapt to all this. We buy our exotic wood from FSC certified suppliers and follow the CITES regulations. Our Mother of Pearl and Abalone inlay materials come from reliable, well established suppliers. Every Ruokangas guitar is RoHS compliant and we are a certified member of WEEE producer recycling organization (Elker Oy) in Finland.

Tonal Innovation Center – a project run by North Karelia University of Applied Sciences – hosted the first annual International Musical Instruments Seminar last month in Joensuu, Finland. The event brought together various high level influencers within the industry (Fender, Martin and many more) to explore sustainable materials for musical instruments. Juha gave a lecture at the seminar about tonewood Thermo Treatment – a modern technology to improve the available raw materials and a possible method for the future to develop new materials. Ruokangas Guitars wants to congratulate the seminar organizers – we feel it was about time someone took the initiative to arrange such a pioneer event! We sincerely hope this was just the beginning of many events to come and most importantly an opening for concrete action! See the wrap-up press release:

TONIC Seminar, November 2010