This guitar was built to give to Needtobreathe as a thank you for playing a charity concert which was organized by a friend. The guitar had its start about a year before the event when I found this great piece of wormy chestnut that came from a 100+ year old barn in North Carolina. I'd originally bought the wood with the intention of turning it into my personal instrument. When I was approached to build a guitar for Bear and Bo Rinehart, I knew I had to do something really special. The band hails from South Carolina, so I knew I had the perfect piece of wood. Yep. The chestnut I was setting back.
Besides the chestnut from their neck of the woods, there were a few other special touches as well, including home-made fret dots fashioned from aluminum tubing and polymer clay. Bear and Bo are big University of Alabama football fans, so I used red clay for the markers. I also wanted to make sure the guitar sounded spectacular, so I tasked my pickup-winding friend to listen to NTB material and come up with the perfect combo. He didn't disappoint. We have a PAF neck humbucker with a noiseless tele bridge pickup. This has since become my go-to combo.
Here are the specs:
- 25" scale
- Chestnut body
- Hand-carved maple neck with bocote fret board
- Hand-made fret markers
- Custom-wound pickups
- Wilkinson bridge with compensated brass saddles
- CTS pots
- Switchcraft switch and jack
