The Montreal Guitar Show 2010 was a great success for us, and we want to thank all of you SO much for the support! Thanks for visiting us and that so many of you came to see Juha’s lecture at the show!

Thank you also to Jacques-André Dupont and the rest of the Salon de Guitare de Montréal team – we are overwhelmed by the fact that Juha is the next luthier chosen to build a guitar for the MGS Ste-Cat permanent collection!

Now it’s time for summer holiday. Our shop will be closed the rest of July, so please excuse us – emails will be replied slower than normal, and the phones will be switched off for some weeks. We’ll be up and running again in the beginning of August, well rested and ready to build you guys better guitars than ever! In the meanwhile – check our recently updated Stock page, and if you see an item of interest, let us know.

The Montreal Guitar Show 2010 is getting closer and closer! This high end event will be held from July 2 to July 4 at Hyatt Regency Montreal, in the very heart of the International Montreal Jazz Festival. We’ll bring along 6 instruments to the show – here’s sneak-a-peak to one of them!

Juha has been asked to give a lecture at the Montreal Guitar Show about ‘The Mythology of Tone’, and this will take place at Salle Auteuil on 3 July, Saturday, at 2 p.m. The same day you can see lectures by Ken Parker and Tom Ribbecke as well. Here’s the complete Montreal Guitar Show schedule for the Saturday.

And last but not least – The Project Unicorn video diary is now out on DVD! We’ve included all 17 episodes published previously on YouTube and added a new introduction scene plus 80 slides of the build process of the first Unicorn batch made after the 2 prototypes Juha crafts on the videos. Cool!

Those of you interested in purchasing the DVD, send us mail. The price is 20€ or $20 plus shipping. The DVD is available in both PAL and NTSC format.

Here you are – our Frankfurt Musikmesse 2010 video, featuring Petteri Sariola demoing the Unicorn Classic guitar and much more!

We’re excited to attend this new event, held as part of Tampere Guitar Festival at Tampere-talo on 6-7 June 2010. The opening hours are: Sunday 13-18, Monday 11-20. Concerts, master classes, guitars… sounds great! See you there!

Tampere Guitar Show Website

We’re happy to announce that our good friend and devoted guitar enthusiast Hadrian de Oliveira from Brasil has started a blog dedicated to Ruokangas guitars – in Portuguese! Check out the Ruokangas Brasil page for more info! Hats off to Hadrian, who has translated a lot of useful Ruokangas info for his fellow Portuguese speaking guitar fans! Hadrian has even started a Ruokangas Brasil YouTube channel – featuring already the Unicorn Video Diary Episode 1 with Portuguese subtitles, and more is coming up. So cool!

You’ll find the link to Hadrian’s blog also from our website company page – see the sidebar Thumbs Up listing!

Thanks for all of you who stopped by, we had a great time at the Guitar Maker Fair! The location – Kasteel d’Ursel, Hingene was breathtaking! Thanks to the CMB Puurs and all the rest of the CordeFactum Festival organizers for arranging the wonderful event!

All the available show guitars – except one – are now sold. We still have the gorgeous Heritage Cherryburst Duke, check it out here!

Check out our updated photo gallery of the Hellcat Custom built for Matias Kupiainen of Stratovarius. You’ll find also a building process blog of the guitar on our MySpace page.

In the meanwhile, Stratovarius has started preparations for recording their next studio album – and they’re gigging actively as well so stay tuned on the Stratovarius website!

Other Ruokangas updates include adding our good old friend Edmund Piskaty to the featured players, updating the Unicorn 1st batch building process on our MySpace blog and adding loads of new photos on the guitar model pages. More exciting updates coming up soon so stay tuned!!!

We had a great time at the Frankfurt Musikmesse 2010. Thanks so much for everyone who stopped by! It’s so nice to meet all the friends and get so many new friends – we feel extremely grateful for all the rewarding feedback! Here’s a pic of our lil’ booth. Emma is already editing the Messe video, so stay tuned on that!

In the meanwhile, check out these latest cool studio outtakes by Status Minor: Part 2 and Part 3! Sami Saarinen plays his 7-string Hellcat throughout the next album – just like he did on their previous (suberb!) album ‘Dialog’!

Check out also the updated stock page – a few show guitars still available!

Check out the in stock listing – we’ve added a few cool guitars made exclusively for Frankfurt Musikmesse 2010, and a couple more will follow very soon. These guitars are available for purchasing, so let us know if you see an item of interest!

Talking of Musikmesse – if you’re planning to attend, please do stop by and say hi! You’ll find us from hall 4.1, booth #C22. We’ll have a cool selection of guitars along, and Holger from Musikhaus Jever will be assisting Emma and Juha, so we have service in 4 languages – german, english, swedish and finnish!

Check out also the cool photo galleries we’ve finally added – see the sidebar on frontpage, guitar model pages, each submodel page and so on. If we have added guitar pics related to a certain featured player – such as this young gentleman – you’ll find them on the corresponding page. Have fun!

And last but not least – we’ve added the first (of many to come) guitar presentation videos. Check the Mojo Grande video for a little demo by Marko Karhu and tech talk by Juha!

Check out our new vid – Juha’s talks about the new web design and gives tips how to make the most of your browsing experience!

Check out this very cool video, fresh from the Status Minor recording sessions for their second album ‘Ouroboros’, a little outtake of Sami Saarinen soloing with his 7-string Hellcat DeLuxe! Thanks guys for the support, you’re the best!

See also the latest threads from the The Gear Page discussion forum, where people talk about us. By the way – TGP is The place to be for all you gearheads that want to have some serious talk about boutique guitars!

Unicorn talk on TGP

General Ruokangas talk on TGP

Now you can share all your Guitar Builder projects with your Facebook friends. Just pick your favorite guitar and start building – and when you’re happy with the result, click the Facebook share button! The coolest thing is that you’re not only sharing a pic, but also a link back to the guitar you built! Have fun!

Check our latest video, featuring Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister and more, filmed at The NAMM Show 2010 held in Anaheim. Cheers!

Check out the new guitars we have in stock now! Interested to purchase? Send us mail!

Let the party begin! We gave our 15 Year Anniversary Celebration a kickstart by publishing this completely newly designed website! For extra boost we’ve released on this very same date a supercool iPhone Guitar Builder application – download yours for free from iTunes now! And don’t forget to register as a member to this website by June 2010 and you may be one of The lucky 15 who will get a high quality Elixir cable free of charge! To find out more about the membership, check out the Member Area page. Enjoy!

Check out our new video from Helsingin Musiikkimessut (Helsinki Music Fair) 2009, featuring cool live clips by The Giant Leap. Enjoy!

The Swedish Fuzz magazine got there first in the world – to review our Unicorn guitar!

“The Unicorn will without a doubt give its owner precious moments of playing for the rest of his life. This is not only a musical instrument but also a communication tool for your soul.”
- Mats Nermark

Check out our MySpace page for the new Status Minor song ‘Something More’ from their awesome new album ‘Dialog’.

The lead guitarist Sami Saarinen uses his 7-stringed custom built Hellcat on all the guitar tracks. Sami has also composed all the songs on the new album.

Check out our MySpace blog updates – including the custom axe for the Stratovarius shredder Matias Kupiainen, a very cool lefty Duke for Juha Torvinen of Eppu Normaali and more!

We are honoured to announce that two of our guitars have been included in the new book
‘Guitars – A Celebration of Pure Mojo’ by David Schiller and Workman Publishing.

You’ll find this book from bookstores around the world and online shops as well! Warning:
This book may cause serious G.A.S. (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome)!

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