Deer grunt calls

[TimD]

Here's 3 deer grunt calls that I turned out of bubinga wood. Other than being hard as the devil this wood is a delight to work with.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Very nicely done. Not being a hunter myself I suppose they are a valuable tool in the fields. Are you going to sell these?? What was the finish you put on them??

[TimD]

Thanks for the comment. I'll sell some and give a few away as gifts I'm sure. One is for my own use; they do work under the right circumstances at the right time of the year. These were finished with 1500 grit paper, steel wool, then burnished with leather and then a couple coats of wax over that. I bought a full 2x12 of bubinga wood which was very heavy, both physically and money wise. I chose bubinga for 2 reasons, it's looks and it's one of the tonal woods. To me it has more of a mellower sound than a call made from walnut which I have tried.
I've had several different hunters listen with their backs to me to 3 different call, a bought commercial call, one from walnut and the bubinga. So far everyone has agreed that the bubinga sounds the best. This was without telling them which was which when I blew on it. Of course the depth that the stopper is allowed to seat, the length of the reed and how it's seated has some to do with it.

[scrapmkr]

TimD, great looking calls! I'm currently in the process of learning to make predator calls. So far my efforts have been functional, but I still have a bunch of refining to do. You mentioned bubinga as one of the "tonal woods". What other woods do you know to have good sound quality?

[TimD]

Thanks for the comp. Not being an expert on the subject of tonal woods I'll just try to pass on some of what I've been learning. Black Walnut is traditionally used in a lot of calls and has tonal qualites. Maple, rosewood as a tonal. Sitka spruce is also but that's a pretty soft wood. Koa, Brazillian and Indian rosewoods are tonal woods. Mahogany including the sapelle which is African Mahogany. Ziricote wood from Mexico is supposed to be a tonal also.
I believe that for a predator call I would be tempted to try something like Brazilian or Indian rosewood with a lean toward the Brazilian. Mahogany should be another good choice as would Koa with mahogany being cheaper and easier to find.
After I did a little research on the subject I tried black walnut, maple, red cedar, poplar and a couple of more. All sounded fair but for a deer grunt when I tried a piece of bubinga that got my attention. Make you one out of as many different wools as you can get your hands on and then check out the different sounds each makes with the same amount of air blowing thru them.
I took one of my calls to a sporting goods store a while back and blew it in the store. The owner wanted to know how much I wanted for them and several customers of his turned their heads and wanted to know what that was and how much were they. Bubinga may even work real good for a predator call, to me it's a very beautiful wood and takes a very high polish.

[scrapmkr]

You've provided some interesting ideas. I have walnut running out my ears and I'm getting bored with it. I can also get Osage, Oak, and Cedar by stepping off my porch with a chainsaw. I've turned some pens out of Ziricote and I sure like the way it looks and feels.

[TimD]

I have toyed with the idea of uusing my C-pap breathing machine that I have to sleep under for an air supply if it would go high enogh. I think a good steady air supply delivered at the same volume/pressure would be ideal to test the different woods with.
I have seen osage orange blanks for sale for game calls and I have made a few pens out of it. For some of the pens I glued osage and bloodwood together, the strips of each color were 5/16" thick; I glued them together in alternating bands - red, yellow, red. yellow, etc. The stips were 5/16" thick, x 5/8" wide x 5" long. I glued up 2 different layes this way starting 1 with the red on the far left and the other one with the yellow on the far left. After edge gluing the 2 layers up I rotated the yellow on left layer 90 degrees to the red layer. This would be red on left on bottom running perpendicular to you and yellow on top running left to right.
Then the miter gauge on the table saw is rotated several degrees, differeent angles will make it look different. I then took the one corner off the stack, turned the miter back to 90 and then cut across the stack with a 5/8" rip with the first chopped off corner resting on the miter gage. This results in cutting the two layers across each grain on an angle. I tried to post a pic of but for some reason I couldn't get it to resize small enough to fit here. I'll try playing with it and when I can resize it I'll post.
I've thought about doing the same technique with a call as the 2-layered wood would run around the call in a spiral.

[scrapmkr]

I'd sure like to see that. The Osage I get here is bright yellow when cut (I've seen larger trees produce a rich gold colored heartwood) but will gradually turn darker the more it is exposed to sunlight. Do you have a treatment that will prevent this?