Toneboard Question

[COsby]

Hey all,
 I have had some decent sucess with toneboards. There are some pitches that are eluding me though. I cannot seem to get "lower" sound. I can get a good quack, feed call, amount of air... but unless I make it sound low, the call has a hard time getting low. Also, I'd like them to be just a touch more raspy.
 I can get so far (pictures attached) but it seems if I go any further the sound goes away completely. I'll try and post a video later but work may frown on me blowing one in the office.

 Basically, how can I get a touch more rasp, and a touch lower sound (may be the exact same thing).
Anyone have any suggestions?

[Prairie Game Calls]

From what I have learned is of course is lots of things that all play into how the call sounds. But when I'm at the place you are here is what I do. To add more rasp I deepen the tone channel. Dog eared reeds don't always make rasp. Longer reed deeper tone shorter reed higher tone. 2 ways to lengthen the reed. Flatten the tone board or make the reed longer. Flattening the tone board has draw backs too. Too much and the reed will hang up on you. You can file the back of the cork notch a little at a time to raise the front of the reed up. This of course may call for a thicker cork. Also back pressure can affect the rasp. From what I have seen too much back pressure and the notes are more clear, lower volume, and a missing midrange when changing from a high ball to a come back or a come back to a feed chuckle. What size is your tone channel?

Larry

[COsby]

My tone channel is 3.25" in length and .25 in "diameter".

If I cut the cork back just a bit wouldn't that have the same impact as lengthening the tone channel?

I've been trying to come out .125" then start to radius down smoothly.

[James Strickland]

Larry's given good advice.  When I have a call that isn't quite deep enough in pitch, I start by lengthening the reed since it's the easiest thing for me to adjust.  I simply slide the reed out a tad and try the call again.  Doing this, I can see how much longer the reed needs to be before I start cutting up new reeds.  To get more rasp, I'll start by cutting larger dog ears on the reed.

If the above approaches don't get me the sound I'm after, then I start filing on the toneboard, lengthening &/or deepening the tone channel, etc.  But, it's awful hard to put wood back on once you've filed it away.  That's why I start with the reed.

Be sure you take notes of what you try and what the outcome is.  Whether results were good or bad, those notes will help you on future calls.

[COsby]

Oh yes, I keep notes of all changes on the calls and the final measurements.

If I lengthen the reed, the call locks up when you put a lot of air in it...

What if I moved the .125 begging of the slope back to the reed and gave it slightly more radius. Would that have the same affect as what you're suggesting?

[James Strickland]

If it locks up when you lengthen the reed then you may need to also lengthen the tone channel slightly.

[COsby]

Ah, I got ya.

Thanks guys, I'll do some playing on some extra material.

[dogcatcher]

Get some 5/8" dowel and play with it, a lot easier than turning inserts to learn how to get the sound you want. 

Marvin 

[COsby]

Get some 5/8" dowel and play with it, a lot easier than turning inserts to learn how to get the sound you want. 

Marvin

Have part of a stick at the house. I went through a lot of it testing out adjustments and sounds. I'm going to go back through and do it again now that I have some more experience under my belt.

[Joe Short]

Get some 5/8" dowel and play with it, a lot easier than turning inserts to learn how to get the sound you want. 

Marvin

That's the best advice anyone could ever give a budding callmaker. Work 50 or 75 different ones and you'll have a pretty good idea of what's going on and what to do to give you the desired effect... there's a lot of good information to be had here but it's hard to beat experience.

[dogcatcher]

Don't forget to take notes!!!

Marvin

[COsby]

Well good news and good news...

1. I learned something

2. The call is fixed and I love the sounds.

Turns out the reeds were just too short. I pulled the reeds from a call that is my favorite sounding so far and it ran awesome. These are just a bit longer.

It's nice being consistent enough that I can cut a reed to a certain length and get an almost identical sound out of each call. Sounds odd I'm saying that, but that's a pretty big step in my opinion.

Oh, I learned too short of reeds go higher pitched. Need to look back through my notes and see if I ran that combo.

[James Strickland]

Glad you got it all lined out.  And learning something new is a good thing!