~ Zaukus Guitars ~

Joseph Zaukus' interest in building guitars began in 1985. After building a couple personal instruments, he contacted a small guitar company in Baltimore Maryland (his hometown) called KT Guitars to show Mike Koontz, (one of the owners) his work and hopefully land a job there. A few weeks later he got the call that there was a position available in the woodworking department and got the job. Unfortunately KT Guitars was not destined to stay in business and closed their shop within a year. With a little experience under his belt, Joseph felt confident to approach PRS Guitars in Annapolis, Maryland. They had an opening in the finishing department and as well as working for a great company, Joseph was excited to learn finishing since most of his prior experience was with woodworking. He stayed with PRS for approximately one year.

In the fall of 1987 Joseph left PRS to persue an opportunity starting his own contracting company. While running that business, he continued to build guitars as a hobby, mostly for himself and for friends. He really enjoyed the challenge of designing and building a fully custom instrument from paper to player - and that was mostly what he would do for the next several years as time would permit. In 1995 he moved to Nashville Tn, and continued with the contracting company as well as some limited guitar building. In fall of 2000 he took a job with Gibson Guitars in thier Original Acoustic Instruments division in the finishing department. He stayed with Gibson for the next three years and decided to restart the contracting company and go back to building instruments as a hobby.

Fast forward to 2011. That little voice in joseph's head, along with friends and family saying “You know, you should really be doing this full time” finally won. So he went to work designing the ultimate solid body guitar. It would become a culmination of all things he personally thought made a great guitar with none of the shortcuts or comprimises imposed by corporate bean counters. Using only the finest materials and hardware, he handcrafts every guitar, and every step of construction to deliver what he sees as a sculpted work of playable art. Zaukus is very proud to say that this truly is one of the best new solid body guitars available today, if not THE best.