Designing the gut required that I make a list of what I really wanted out of the gut, in order of importance. Some of the things that were most important to me were efficiency, range, speed, and a monster low end.
I started off buying a bunch of different gut sets and setting them up in my calls. I adjusted and re-adjusted them, swapping in different reeds, trying the curve up and down, using tape on the wedge to run them farther out of the insert, or changing the wedge to something thinner to set them deeper into the call. Then I took notes on everthing I had learned with each change, how I thought it affected the sound or operation of the call compared to what I was looking for, and what I didn't like about the call or setup. I would then spend a few hours going over the gut, measuring the primary and secondary angles, the width and depth of the tone channel, the length from the hinge point to the tone channel end, etc.
The list took months to compile and about 25 pages in my notebook.
What also happened over that period of months was me finding the correlations between what worked best for my air presentation, call designs, and ability. I started working over sets of guts to change the primary and secondary angles, as well as hinge point to test some of my theories as to what I thought would bring me into where I would be happy with the gut. I'm not gonna lie to ya, it wasn't cheap, easy, or fast, so if your thinking on doing this in a weekend your probably gonna need more time. I figured out with the reciepts I could find that I am way over $500 into this little adventure with guts, materials, and postage, but to set up a call with a set of guts that you worked this hard for is pure joy and worth every penny.
I took a set out to a buddy last night and had him set them up in one of his calls and give it a test run and get his thoughts on what I had and where he thought any changes could be made. He blew the call for about 4 minutes, and told me that it was like blowing a set of very efficient guts with a hinge shave, only louder and with better volume and control. I'm happy to be finished with this set, and ready to tackle the next set with a slighlty less costly and more timely finish this time (I hope!)
Good luck to all!
Bob
