A Few Pot Call Questions-Any Help Appreciated

[FrankCalls]

So I'm attempting to make my first few pot calls. I'm not turning them myself, Ive ordered pre-cut pots and a few different soundboard and surfaces to mix and match. I was wondering if you can just set the soundboard and surface material in place without gluing for a preview of the sound before you commit and glue it into place? Will it sound the same just resting on the wood as it would with glue? Ive ordered some copper, slate, glass and acrylic all to mix and match. As well as striker dowels and separate tips out of various woods to combine. Any tips on soundboard and surface combos and what strikers would be compatible with them? I know the fun is the experimenting, but I am on a budget. I cant afford to glue and finalize numerous calls to find out they sound like crap haha.

Also with a pre-cut call and pre-cut surfaces is there any other ways to fine tune the pitch and tone or make further modifications to tweak the sound? I'm not making these to sell, just think it would be cool to kill a bird from a call that I put some time and effort into making and maybe make a few for gifts!

[Brad_23]

Maybe I can be some help I'm by no means a pro at making calls.. I have only been making them for a little over a year and what I have learn have came from the great folks here.. as for knowing what you have in the sound of your call the only way is to glue it up.. if you don't like the sound you can apply heat to it and ease the surface off and try a different combo.. but you can run different strikers on it to get different sounds..and as for surface and sound board combos I like glass over glass and slate over glass.. Hickory is a good choice as also Purple Heart to run on pretty much any surface .. that's about all I can give ya and I hope it helps somewhat.. and good luck to you hope they turn out good!

[Evan @ CBC Custom Calls]

Best suggestion is to glue them up and see what happens.  I'm guessing you got your pots from Custom Sawing (that's the only place I've seen sell pre-cut pots).  I know from experience, any combo of glass and slate in their pots will call in a bird.  Whether they sound like crap is a matter of opinion ;).  Glass over glass will be sharper and higher pitched, slate over slate is mellow and warm, other combos of slate and glass will fall in the middle.  I would avoid even testing a copper surface though being as they are expensive and fickle.  Just my two cents :)

[JTitus]

I am with you Frank on this experiment.  I ordered a box of calls from Brookside, with an array of surfaces and tone boards, and a sample pack of strikers in 5-6 different woods.  I even got an acrylic one to try on a copper surface.  Just got my drill press setup to do the sanding work on them, but I hope to have them sanded and ready to glue by sunday.  What woods and surfaces did you get?
all my tone boards are copper or glass, with exception of one cedar board that I wanted to try.  I am using Goop shoe glue to bond mine up.  Best of luck

[FDR]

Be sure to try at least one aluminum striker surface over glass! Purple heart striker should work well. I don't sand the black aluminum striker surface just clean with an alcohol prep.

Fred

[Truefire]

Frank, it will absolutely sound different if the soundboard hasn't been glued in place. 

You could glue the soundboard and playing surface in place with just a minimal amount of flexible type glue such as a Plumber's Goop.  Then after 'running your sound testing', if it doesn't meet your standard, place the call in the microwave on a lower power setting for just a few seconds to bring the glue back into it's plastic range.  Just a few seconds at a time.   Using your striker dowel or smaller dowel rod, push the soundboard and glass top out of the call from the bottom up, through one of the exhaust holes.  If you go easy and take your time, you can usually remove both without damage to either or to the pot. 

You can obtain a variety or 'fine tune your pitch and tones' quite a bit by just varying the striker material, striker dowel length and the weight of the heads; without really having to do much to your pot.  However, should you desire to tweak a pot without putting in back on a lathe...opening up the exhaust by drilling more holes in the bottom of the call, thereby making a lighter pot and allowing quicker exhaust will change things.  Of course, not reversible....take your time -one hole at a time would be advised.   Just don't go at it like your'e beating snakes and you may have some interesting findings.