Custom hand-made guitars with a unique vibe.
Founded in Newtown, Ohio by Kent Meloy in 2018, what began as an experimental guitar building venture has expanded to offering eye-catching designs that are tailored to each client. In 2021 Mark Szabo joined the fray to broaden the palette with custom pickups and electronics and some of the best fretwork this side of Jupiter.
We can customize any design to meet your needs, or start from scratch, designing your ultimate instrument to your specifications.
Made with a great deal of love, the lineup of models is constantly expanding. Each build is special, and each has a story – whether in the build itself, the design, the materials used, or all three! Making a connection with the client and what they want to accomplish is something we find incredibly powerful. And it’s fun.
For a quick view of our available models, you can jump to our Models and Options page, or read on to learn more about a few of these axes.
Interested in seeing our builds come together? Subscribe and follow the adventures on our YouTube channel! From wood selection (and sometimes harvesting) through final fit and finish, with hopefully an interesting story or three in the process.
Recent Builds
Clockwise, starting upper left: The “Phoenix”, a rebuild of my original “Xanadu” from 42 years ago (see bottom of page!), The “Evil Twin v5, and the “Mouse” (baritone acousti-lectric uke).
THE GREAT GUITAR BUILD OFF 2022 – The Tunguska M5
Our entry into Crimson Guitars’ (UK) annual guitar-building competition. The first video is a ‘super edit’ of the whole build, six months of work plus demo in 12 minutes. The full playlist link is below the specs.
Specs:
Body/Neck: Black Walnut / Maple / Cherry Laminate
Top: Cherry
Fretboard: Macassar Ebony w/ Cherry Binding
Tailpiece: Custom Designed and Machined Tunguska Tailpiece
Pickups: Custom Tunguska Overwound Alnico 2 Humbuckers
Recessed Bridge
Push-Pull Volume/Tone (coil split)
Graph Tech Ratio Tuning Machines
Full Build Playlist:
THE v5 “KEEFE”
The veritable swamp monster (full build detail here)
Live edge/end Cherry body and neck
Pau Ferro fretboard w/ maple position marker inlays
Parsons Street hand-distressed overwound humbucker
Single ‘hovering’ volume control
Garage-fabricated custom bridge and tailpiece (3/8″ steel rod, angle grinder, blowtorch)
Wrought Iron “Purfling” ring
Featured in the April 2022 issue of Premier Guitar magazine!
THE v5 “VICTOR” semi-hollowbody
Curly Maple top, Mahogany body
Birds-eye Maple neck, African Ebony fretboard
Maple dot inlays
Lace Alumitone Pickups
GraphTec Ratio tuning machines
Built as a gift for my oldest, dearest friend. He had no idea I was doing it. Sneaky is good. This instrument was the turning point. Before this I’d been having fun creating a little six-string psuedo-magic, but hadn’t thought beyond personal use. Now I consider Victor the flagship guitar of our lineup, the one that really lit the fuse.
THE v5 “DEF BEF” Slimline Semi-Hollowbody
Korina Body and Neck
Flame Maple Top
Bocote fretboard
Lace Alumitone humbuckers
Gotoh locking tuning machines
Another of my dearest and oldest friends saw the progress on the “Victor” and mused about how one day she’d love to be able to commission one from me, and after a few conversations we had a plan. Her main goal was something LIGHTWEIGHT – she’d been playing a huge old P-bass in her recent bands and was simply tired of slinging that much lumber over her shoulders. So, I designed this version -much- thinner than normal, hollowed out as much as I possibly could, and picking the Lace Alumitone pickups also added to the weight reduction, those silly things are so light the almost hover. I’m super pleased with how this came out. It plays like glass and sounds waaaay beefier than such a lightweight piece of wood should.
“BARBARELLA” doubleneck
Rock Maple bodies
Black Limba wings
Pupleheart laminates
Macassar Ebony fretboards
Lace Alumitone humbuckers
Lace Alumitone P-bass pickup
Fishman Powerbridge piezo
Handmade guitar tailpiece(s)
The above-mentioned Jeff and his wife suggested we should do an acoustic (of sorts) band, which is something I’ve never done. It will stay a trio, but we realized there oughtta be some fun with backing tracks and instrument swapping. To that end I dreamt up this beast, a doubleneck guitar/bass that can handle humbucker/single coil, bass and acoustic tones. It sort of started out as a joke, but I’m really digging how she came together. She’s named due to the decidedly 1950’s ray-gun vibe that happened, and honestly Jane Fonda always reminded me of my mom, so there.
THE v4 solidbody
Alder body
Purpleheart neck with Ziricote fretboard
Maple dot inlays
Lace Alumitone Pickups
Schaller wraparound bridge
This one sounds as gorgeous as it looks, and is where I fell in love with Lace Alumitones. Originally this one had a bit of a ball-bat neck, as I was dialing in my carving technique. It wasn’t awful, just not great, but one night after mucking about with it I decided it either needed to be gently massaged with a sharp set of files, or build a new one. The former won out, and now it’s perfect.
THE v1 solidbody
Swamp Ash body
Small-format
TV-Jones pickups
Off-the-shelf neck
The v1 is my first new (see final post below) custom build -mostly- from scratch. I didn’t have the nerve (nor did I really have the right tools yet) to do a neck, it seemed like weird voodoo science beyond my ken, so a pre-built was slapped on. It’s got a lovely jangle to it.
Last, but not least, the one that started it all.
This is the very first build I ever did, waaaaay before I had any clue what I was doing. Circa 1980, high-school shop class project built from modified plans for a 6-string bass my dad found in a Popular Mechanics magazine. Made from pine with a rock maple neck with integrated fretboard, hand-wound pickups made from rod magnets and plexiglass. Wouldn’t stay in tune to save it’s life and sounded pretty hard-core surf. Alas there are no photos I can find of it from it’s birth-dates, but it’s been in the garage for years. Maybe one day I’ll build an homage to it (though, now that I look more closely at Barbarella, maybe I already have). The first three photos are right after pulling it from the garage, the last one is after significant (but not finished) cleanup.
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contact: kgmeloy@tunguskaguitars.com