The Natural (baseball movie)

I'm thinking of attempting to do Roy Hobbs' bat from the movie "The Natural", Wonderboy I think was the name of his bat.

Has anyone ever attempted this??? or anything else from the movie.

I was also wanting to do the patch with the lightning bolt on it that they wear on their uniforms.

sorry to go offtopic, but a baseball movie called The natural? lol
how ironic

I made one in wood shop, when I was in High School, when that film came out.

Of course I made mine on a lathe, rather than using a spoke shave, like they showed in the film.

They used a term in the film called "boning". Roy says he "boned it, so it wouldn't chip" (or something like that).

Boned wood is the simple act of rubbing a bone against the wood, to smooth out and compress the wood cells. You can do this with anything that's smooth and hard. An old wife’s tail says something about the oils in bones or teeth, that harden the wood... Which is a crock of *****.

It's not a common practice any more, because it's stupid.

Do you own a lathe? It makes life a lot easier.

Mountain Ash (good ash) is getting harder to come by these days. Where I am in the Northeast, there's a blight affecting all the ash trees around here. So the wood's no good, except to burn.

The bat in the film is made out of Ash, which is essentially oak, but with a bleached appearance and a tighter wood grain. The rings are about the same width apart as oak, but not as porous. It's a much harder wood, but it doesn't leave much to the eye. It doesn't color up as nicely as oak does, when you put a natural finish on it. It's a harder and better wood than oak, but it's not as pretty. So it's not as popular or as easy to get.

I'd recommend laminating (gluing lengths together) at least two opposing pieces together, with a GOOD wood glue or something like West System epoxy. It'll be much stronger if you put a joint in it, but that's not what they used to do, way back then. They always used solid stock.

And then a simple wood burning iron will do the thunderbolt.

Is this for show or for use?

Echo Six:

Thanks, that's exactly the info I was looking for. I do have a lathe, so yeah I would be at the least starting it on a lathe. As far as wood I have access to oak, so that is my first and easiest choice, I would use ash if I can find some, I live in Tennessee, so I have to research if it's native here, and it would be mainly for show in a case or something like that, unless I get called up to the big leagues.

Thanks for the help I keep u updated

and Sparrowfan:

This is arguably the best baseball movie ever, set in a time when baseball truely was america's pasttime, and if Redford signs his name to it you can bet it's a damn good project.

Yeah... It was made back when Glenn Close didn't require a paper bag over her head. Eeeesh... NOT an attractive lady to meet in person!

Ya' gotta' love what make-up can do!


You should be able to find it at a hardwood distributor. You might find it at your local lumber yard, but it's not likely. Most exotic hardwood supply yards, will stock ash. It's not as rare as some of the European woods, but it's certainly not as readily available as pine. But a hardwood supply should most definitely have it.

I've been trying to find screen-used baseball gloves from this movie forever!

I love this movie! Sorry I don't have anything helpful to add, but I will be watching this thread with great interest!

We used to make those! Well, we made a few...

I'll post a pic if I can find it. We made Harry Potter wands and the Wonderboy bat. (My buddy bought a lathe...)

We were going to go into a huge production, but only made a dozen - if that.

Then we found a trick of buying an already made bat, like a Derek Jeter model, and sanding it down to take off all the markings, re-shape a little, and then burn in the name. Looks great!

This was years ago though... Don't think I could get him back in business, he has like four kids now. Sheesh!

-- Tim

Hey! Found a pic. This wasn't our main photo, it was supposed to be the same pose as Hobbs at some point in the movie. But you can see the bat. What do you think!?

-- Tim

How'd this turn out? Did you make the bat?