About
The Company
Olympus Guitars Australia is registered as a sole proprietorship with ABN 687 941 900 94 in Botany NSW Australia. The Olympus Guitars is headquartered at 5/6 Booralee Street in Botany and is housed in the same space with Wheeler Custom Lutherie which build Acoustic and Classical guitars.
As the Sole Proprietor of Olympus Guitars, Mr. Ioannis Giantsios aka (Johnny Prapas) is the Owner, Founder, CEO and master luthier of our hand crafted instruments.
Johnny is assisted by the Director's Manager and Artist Relations,
Mr. Konstantinos Panis - Germany
Mr Darrin Pruitt - USA.
The Luthier
Johnny Prapas is a classically trained Master Luthier and served his apprenticeship 2 years under John Harrison in 1993/1995. During this time he learned many theories and skills of crafting the finest acoustic and electric guitars as well as other stringed instruments.
With this knowledge and these skills, Johnny began Olympus Custom Guitars of Leptokrya, Greece in 2007. The family and company moved to the Sydney region of NSW Australia in 2018.
Since 03 July 2018, the same company is known and registered as Olympus Guitars and operates a manufacturing facility in Botany NSW Australia.
Through these many years, Olympus Guitars has built relationships not only with exceptional named artists including Alice Cooper (Alice Cooper and Hollywood Vampires), Bill F Gibbons (ZZ Top and Bill F Gibbons Band), Eric Gales (Eric Gales Band), Austin Hanks (Bill F Gibbons Band and Austin Hanks Band), Miguel Montalban (Miguel Montalban and the Southern Seagulls), Lisa Perry (Hellz Abyss), Victor Wooten camp, Arlen Roth,Doug Seven and many more, but also with some of the finest quality manufacturers of the required components and supplies throughout the world.
The incorporation of these artists and these exceptional components are integral to the quality, brand and reputation of our instruments. We carefully match these exceptional components with exquisite hand selected, naturally aged tone-woods. The natural aging processes cures the woods and their resins more thoroughly and completely than the industrial processes of kiln drying, allowing richer tones and more favorable aging of the instruments.
Wood
In Olympus Guitars workshop the wood as a raw material for the construction of a handmade musical instrument is very important. We strictly follow the standards set by master luthier Johnny Prapas and his more than 26 years of experience in instrument making.
Born and raised at the foot of the mountain of the twelve gods Mt. Olympus in a traditional family of lumberjacks, Johnny learned to distinguish the woods suitable for the construction of musical instruments from a very young age . Woods such as the greek olive, black chestnut of Olympus, walnut of Olympus and the pine of Olympus have dominant role in the construction.
Twenty years ago our workshop at Olympus Guitars was one of the first in the world to introduce Greek olive wood in the creation of Electric instruments. Since then we constantly developed our construction methods, following the world standards in wood processing and expanded our range of available woods significantly.