Kraus Guitars

Bill Kraus builds guitars the old fashioned way, by hand, at his shop in Middleport, NY, northeast of Buffalo, described per the town’s website as a quaint little village of about 2,000 residents situated in the Royalton and Hartland regions on the eastern edge of Niagara County.   Kraus guitars are currently offered in two body styles, cleverly named the "OM" and the "D". While the shapes of these instruments are based on the traditional designs, the internal bracing and other design concepts are unique to this brand. It is a trade secret, so don’t even think about asking.

Beeswing mahogany is characterized by having a three-dimensional shimmer unlike that of conventional mahoganies.   This guitar comes with a Macassar Ebony fingerboard and bridge with light striping on just the bridge; the body bindings and the neck binding are all East Indian rosewood, the soundhole is bordered in three rings of purfling with a wide swath of abalone at the center.  The bridge pins are ebony, each with an abalone dot and the end pin matches.  Tuners are Gotoh Model 510 in gold plate; heel cap is Indian rosewood and so is the end graft.  The headplate overlay is Macassar Ebony with infinitely light mineral streaking at the center.

This guitar features dark brown East Indian rosewood with even grain (dark alternating with light brown) bisected on the back by a wide stripe of Hawaiian curly Koa.   Similarly, each of the sides and the fingerboard are as well crafted from exceptionally curly Koa.  The heel cap and engraft are also Koa but not as curly.   Features include:  a hand-picked Sitka spruce top that has considerable cross-silking (medullary rays) resulting in a chatoyant quality last seen in Leonardo Di Vinci’s apocalyptic paintings suggesting the end of the world. 

William Kraus, who uses the logo (in highly stylized abalone) “WK” in which both the W and the K seem to be mating or something, is a maker of extremely fine sounding, beautifully hand-crafted guitars, in the traditional design of the great dreadnoughts of the past. This one, however, exceeds all expectations of excellence and beauty in that it has a Honduran rosewood back, sides and headstock overlay.

Our Discount Price is $3,706.00 and Our Cash Discount Price is $3,595.00