THO Game Calls Forums
The Art of Handcrafting Custom Game Calls => Handcrafting Custom Goose Calls => Topic started by: bloodbrothercalls on March 29, 2014, 02:01:43 AM
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Hi all, I just wanted to share my journey of making my own goose gut design. I just joined this forum, previously I was just on CCO. I have been making calls for about 3 years now and this process has taken me about 1.5 years of that. This past summer I finally came to a shape that I was satisfied with. It took me about 60 toneboards to get to my final design. I started with wood guts because they are cheaper and easier to sand down. After about 10 wood guts I had some that had decent sound. Then I moved on to delrin and a file, these take much longer to file down to shape. Early on I would only spend 20 minutes filing them before I screwed them up, towards the end I had an average time of 3 hours filing the toneboard down until I decided I needed to start over.
found the process to be very "up and down". Some nights leaving the shop I would feel very excited and motivated, others I would feel defeated and wanting to give up! :stickman1: I think that is why it is important to take this process slowly and not rush things, otherwise you will get burnt out. There was multiple times where I had thought I had the perfect gut and would leave the shop thinking this is the one I am going to get a jig made from. Then returning to the shop I would pick the call up and find all sorts of areas where I thought needed improvement. The toneboard that I finished with I actually waited 2 weeks before making my final decision. I would call on it every day just to make sure I was 100% sure this was the one. That was a patience builder for sure haha :hammer:
Something I found very useful in making that final decision is calling with the call in multiple locations, I would call in the shop, outside and in the house because the acoustics are so different that its easier to hone in on certain tones and ranges when you hear it in different places, Also recording yourself calling then listening to the audio is huge, it will point out little imperfections that you might not hear while calling yourself.
I sent in my gut to Stelz and he molded me up a bunch. i am currently in the process of wearing in one of the toneboards he made me. I have about 10 hours of calling on it so far and barely even a hint of wore in lines yet :stickman1: haha I have heard that to completely wear in a toneboard it takes around 300 hours of calling on it, depending on the type of resin it is molded with? My goal is to wear in the set and win some contests with my own gut design. That is about the ultimate reward there is in making your own toneboard. I am also going to get a jig made from Wade so I can make guts from other materials (wood, acrylic antler ect.).
Overall I am very satisfied with the process, I learned a heck of a lot on what makes a goose call tick and I tried all sorts of things. I even tried to make an upslope goose toneboard haha :punk: Didn't really pan out but now I am going to have to start my journey for duck toneboards :pot: Which I am guessing will take me at least the same amount of time if not longer! It makes you feel like a whole different level of call maker once you sell a call that has your own guts in them, and let me tell you It was TOTALLY worth all the frustration and time spent making them! Let me know what you think and am more than happy to answer any questions! Thanks,
Ross
A pile of the prototypes I made, about 50 of them here, 5 wood jigs I made throughout the process and the public goose gut jig from wade at webfoot that helped me a ton!
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x435/ross_bob_14/Guts.jpg) (http://s1181.photobucket.com/user/ross_bob_14/media/Guts.jpg.html)
My Final toneboard, radius slope with 3/8" tone channel
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x435/ross_bob_14/DSCN1468.jpg) (http://s1181.photobucket.com/user/ross_bob_14/media/DSCN1468.jpg.html)
Guts that Stelzner molded for me off my original
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x435/ross_bob_14/GutsMolded.jpg) (http://s1181.photobucket.com/user/ross_bob_14/media/GutsMolded.jpg.html)
Sound File for guts (old might upload a new one)
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x435/ross_bob_14/th_Video.jpg) (http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x435/ross_bob_14/Video.mp4)
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Gret post and great work, Ross. Congratulations! I'm the opposite... one of these days I'm going to carve out some time to learn to make a goose call.
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Inspiring to say the least Ross!... and they sound great. Congrats on your results.
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Nice writeup man! Looks like you've got a TON of work in them! I am sure you final product will be extremely rewarding!
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Howdy Ross and welcome here on THO! :beer:
Outstanding!!
I really appreciate the amount of work you have gone through and your calling an guts sound excellent! Way to go! :punk:
The guts almost look flute like and look a little rounded on the angle to me. Have you tired one of them in a flute by any chance? I'll be with a little more easing of the angle and a little more drop in front you might be right there.
It really hits home for me as I have been making wooden guts for my St. Charles calls and it is a time consuming adventure. Keep them coming!
:bigup:
Doug
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Thanks everyone! Yes Doug it is a rounded radius compared to the typical flat slope of many short reed calls. I found that you can squeeze a little extra range if you design it as a radius. You can also fine tune the radius so it doesn't take so much air to make murmur and low end sounds. But the hard part is it takes an incredible amount of time to design compared to a regular flat slope toneboard. Flat toneboards are hard enough to get right then you add in the radius and it gets technical. The hardest part with the radius was keeping the low sound of a canada, many of them turned out to be way too high pitch more like a snow goose, which is what happens when your radius has too much drop to it. I am interested to see what they sound like once they are wore in, compared to a flat slope wore in set. Actually my ultimate goal is to somehow get a wore in set and machine a wood wore in toneboard out. I think that would be the ultimate, :punk: and I have not heard of anyone doing that? As you can tell I love goose calls haha
Ross
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Have you looked into setting your guts up on an air compressor to get them broken in faster?
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Have you looked into setting your guts up on an air compressor to get them broken in faster?
I don't think that really works does it? haha I've heard that some have tried but haven't had much success? I guess it would be worth a shot though?
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Have you looked into setting your guts up on an air compressor to get them broken in faster?
I don't think that really works does it? haha I've heard that some have tried but haven't had much success? I guess it would be worth a shot though?
Do not do this. It has been proven multiple times on other forums that this does not work and causes more harm than good. Great way to ruin a set of guts that sounds like they have a bunch of blood, sweat and tears into.
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That sounds awesome!! :bigup: I wish I could call like that, when the geese are flying over they are always looking for the retarded one that keeps makin' a funny sound (me) and then they fly off laughing. :duck:
David
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Great write up. Very motivating and shows the time and hard work will pay off. Congrats and Good luck with any contest.
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Have you looked into setting your guts up on an air compressor to get them broken in faster?
I don't think that really works does it? haha I've heard that some have tried but haven't had much success? I guess it would be worth a shot though?
Do not do this. It has been proven multiple times on other forums that this does not work and causes more harm than good. Great way to ruin a set of guts that sounds like they have a bunch of blood, sweat and tears into.
Thanks for your input Andrew
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Great write up. Very motivating and shows the time and hard work will pay off. Congrats and Good luck with any contest.
Thanks Ron!
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Welcome to THO!
Thanks for the inspirational read. I have the same feeling when tuning a duck call. Sometimes you think you have it nailed and the next day you pick it up and realize its missing something.
Those guts sound like they were worth the effort, I really like the high pitch pops you were hitting with it. Are they as responsive as you make them sound?
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Welcome to THO!
Thanks for the inspirational read. I have the same feeling when tuning a duck call. Sometimes you think you have it nailed and the next day you pick it up and realize its missing something.
Those guts sound like they were worth the effort, I really like the high pitch pops you were hitting with it. Are they as responsive as you make them sound?
Thanks Jon, PM me and i will send you a set to try so you can decide for yourself! :2up:
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I really enjoyed reading this one. Looks very familiar with the pics of many, many milled out tone boards. It was a long journey for me as well. Congrats on grabbing that brass ring. It just thrills me to know that others are trying to make their own goose guts, and many more are hand cutting their own reed configurations as well.
This is what its all about . . . "Custom is Custom Made!" :2up: :clap:
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I really enjoyed reading this one. Looks very familiar with the pics of many, many milled out tone boards. It was a long journey for me as well. Congrats on grabbing that brass ring. It just thrills me to know that others are trying to make their own goose guts, and many more are hand cutting their own reed configurations as well.
This is what its all about . . . "Custom is Custom Made!" :2up: :clap:
Well said! Thanks Joe I really appreciate it! I have looked up to you for a long time on both forums and I have to admit I have taken a lot of your knowledge for making goose guts as far as how to set up the jig to router them out. It works great!! I am actually working with Wade right now to get a custom jig made so then I can make wood guts which I know you are very fond of :2up: So I am getting very excited to see how the jig turns out! Thanks again!
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Ross, I applaud your efforts in taking the high road. Having been involved in designing jigs and fixtures for quite a few callmakers, it's good to see that you are doing the "hard" R & D yourself. I have some short reed guts that are rounded that I made in the mid '90s.
I too enjoyed reading your post and hope that it inspires others.
Troy