Author Topic: My journey designing goose guts  (Read 10079 times)

bloodbrothercalls

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My journey designing goose guts
« on: March 29, 2014, 02:01:43 AM »
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!


My Final toneboard, radius slope  with 3/8" tone channel



Guts that Stelzner molded for me off my original


Sound File for guts (old might upload a new one)




Offline Henry H

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2014, 08:34:55 AM »
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.

Offline Kevin @ Harvester Calls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2014, 09:33:03 AM »
Inspiring to say the least Ross!... and they sound great. Congrats on your results.
Kevin

Offline VECtor Calls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2014, 01:15:39 PM »
Nice writeup man!  Looks like you've got a TON of work in them!  I am sure you final product will be extremely rewarding!

Pass on the tradition. A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

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Offline gooseforsupper

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2014, 08:54:40 AM »
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

bloodbrothercalls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2014, 09:50:26 AM »
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

Offline VECtor Calls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2014, 10:14:29 AM »
Have you looked into setting your guts up on an air compressor to get them broken in faster?
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bloodbrothercalls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2014, 12:35:32 PM »
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?

Andrew-Brown

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2014, 05:10:25 PM »
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.

Offline David @ Mad Duck Game Calls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2014, 12:23:58 PM »
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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BLKDOGS

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2014, 08:10:25 AM »
Great write up. Very motivating and shows the time and hard work will pay off. Congrats and Good luck with any contest.

bloodbrothercalls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #11 on: April 17, 2014, 01:35:04 PM »
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

bloodbrothercalls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #12 on: April 17, 2014, 01:35:39 PM »
Great write up. Very motivating and shows the time and hard work will pay off. Congrats and Good luck with any contest.

Thanks Ron!

Offline Jon @ JRwoods

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2014, 08:43:51 PM »
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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bloodbrothercalls

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Re: My journey designing goose guts
« Reply #14 on: June 26, 2014, 11:44:37 AM »
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: