JOE KNAGGS HAS carved a stellar reputation for his craftsmanship and design skills since he and his business partner, Peter Wolf, left PRS Guitars in 2009 to form Knaggs Guitars. The Maryland-based guitar maker had a goal to make high-end instruments that offer awesome playability, leading-edge quality and attention to detail, as well as jaw-dropping finishes, including the two-tone schemes that Knaggs pioneered. Those are often with inlaid purfling dividing the colors, such as we saw on the Severn Trem SSS dressed in luscious Seafoam Green and TV Yellow reviewed in our December 2023 issue.
But that particular guitar represented just the tip of Knaggs’ iceberg. The company lets buyers personalize their instruments with an extensive array of options in neck and body woods, hardware, pickups and finishes that are offered within the Chesapeake, Influence, Signature and Creation series. In doing so, Knaggs gives players incredible flexibility in the style of music they play and the tones they seek to achieve ultimate expression.
The Severn Trem SSS I had the pleasure of using for a few weeks during the peak of California’s hot summer was a beautiful guitar with great playability and tones, and amazing tuning stability. One of the many things that impressed me was its innovative Chesapeake trem, a unique vibrato systema steel plate, in Tele fashion, while the hinged bridge riding behind it rests on roller bearings that allow it to move with uncanny smoothness and return-to-pitch precision. is the watchword here, so I asked Knaggs to detail how he combines it with ease of playing, and what role the woods he chooses play into the overall equation.
