Havent posted any calls for a while, here are a few...

[DanNolen]

I haven't posted any calls in a little while so I thought I would throw up a few pictures of a few calls.....

Here was my first hand at the "art" side of things, pigma pen hand drawn feather....


My first shot at the hand carving side of things


Ambrosia Maple



Padauk aluminum pot with padauk shotshell striker



Thanks for looking!

[David @ Mad Duck Game Calls]

Those are sweet....   

[DanNolen]

Thanks David   

[Bobby@Nansemond River TC]

Very nice work

[James Strickland]

Great pics!  I love the shotshell striker.  Haven't seen that before.

[DanNolen]

thanks guys, yea i had never seen it done before either but i thought it would look pretty good on the padauk since it is so red.....

[JCurren]

Good job on those

[James Strickland]

Dan...

You think using real shotshell brass on that striker would affect the sound?

[M. Wells]

Those look awesome 

[DanNolen]

James, I am no expert in "striker engineering" but  if you had a hollow brass piece and cut a tenon on the end of your striker the right size to slip it over and glue it up , i dont see myself where it would alter the sound all that much, the weight of the brass is almost nothing, probably comparable to the amount of material you would carve away to cut the wood down to sleeve it.....i considered doing this but i thought painting it  would be cool too.  I wanted it to stand out from a real shot shell in a way because i wanted the padauk grain to go throughout the striker head.  I was slightly afraid that if i put a real piece of brass on it with the rest padauk that people would (at a quick glance) mistake it for just a real shot shell glued up to a striker peg......

[dogcatcher]

Using the brass should not have enough effect that the human ear could detect it, I do the same thing but I quit using the brass, I prefer to use small piece of either Osage or yellow heart glued to cedar or dyed maple.  To me gluing a short piece of Osage to the rest of the handle seemed more secure than the brass.  When the handle is turned it looks like a shotgun shell, but it also looks like all wood.  It also is easier to switch ends and drill out the fake brass end for the striker dowel.  Then I can carve the crimp into the end of the shell, and put my info on the "brass" end. 

Marvin

[Rick Howard]

Nice looking calls.

[DanNolen]

Thanks!

[DanNolen]

Marvin, do you know of an easy way to get the brass extracted from the spent shell without causing all kinds of havoc? I have done several of these but it required a painstaking amount of drilling and everything else, and is hard to keep the brass from getting marred up....to my knowledge nobody sells "just" the brass end of the shell without the shell already installed do they?

[dogcatcher]

Heat, a BIC lighter will do it, but I use a propane torch on low heat.  Wear welding gloves, heat it up a little and pull it apart, it doesn't take very much and the hull and the plastic in t e base will split from the brass.  The brass is only plated, so be careful don't scratch it or you will have some sort of cheap steel look.   That was one of the reasons I went to glue ups with the Osage or yellow heart for the brass look.   

You have to JB weld them in place, or you can drill a hole though the primer and use a brad.  The primers are tough to drill, again steel, they are not made of copper. 

Marvin