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!
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
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
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
Didn't really pan out but now I am going to have to start my journey for duck toneboards
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)