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I mentioned this build in another thread, and Bryan asked for the story and pics. Rather than take Steve's thread way off topic, I figured I'd put it here in its own place.

I've got a friend who knows Matt Holliday really well. They got to talking one day and figured out they both had the same favorite band, Needtobreathe. Matt actually knows the guys, so they hatched a plan to get them to Stillwater for a charity gig. Several months and tons of meetings later, the gig was set.

My friend asked me if I would be willing to build a couple guitars for the event: one for NTB as a thank-you for doing the show, and one to raffle off to raise money. He and I talked about what we should do for the raffle guitar, and one of us mentioned a baseball-themed guitar since Matt was a big part of the evening. Then without thinking it through (I do that to myself sometimes), I said it would be cool to build the guitar out of some of Matt's bats. Well, my friend thought it was a fantastic idea, and next thing I knew, I had 12 Matt Holliday sig baseball bats in my garage. Crap. Now I had to figure out how to turn them into a guitar.

I love doing themed guitars because I enjoy the creative challenge of making the theme apparent without the guitar being cheesy. So this is what I came up with. I inlaid Matt's number 7 on the fretboard and finished the neck to look like an old, pine-tarred bat. I also hand-stitched a white leather strap to look like a baseball. Matt was so enamored with it that he's the one who bought it.










Here's a shot of Bo from Needtobreathe playing it on one of their last songs of the night.



And a quick video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CVPHt6054

If you want to see the build thread, here's a link: http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-de ... -tele.html


And a shot of me with Matt Holliday




And here's the guitar I built for NTB. Since they're from the Carolinas, I wanted to give them a little bit of home. The body is made from wormy chestnut that was salvaged from a 100+ year old barn in SC. They're also big University of Alabama football fans, so I made custom red fret markers.

That is so cool, good job Roger!

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Pat

That looks great and a cool story too!

I really like the texture the bat profiles give the top and that neck looks awesome. Well done!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

As a baseball nut, that is the coolest git I've seen in ages! I love it.

Great post!
The guitars, pictures and info.
Cheers

That's cool.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626s using Tapatalk

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Another day, another dollar.

That's really cool. Did you varnish the back of the neck to look like tar or is it from one of the bats?

Sweet use go the bats. I like it.

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Very nicely done Rog!

Thanks. I used amber shellac and tobacco brown dye.

Hello guys please help me out. I have an acoustic guitar which had broken due to fall of lecture stand it. It got a big hole in his body. How to plug that hole?

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