I finished these three calls this weekend.
This one is made from ipe. I work for a local city and when we built a highway-rated wooden bridge with an ipe deck last year I grabbed a few ipe cutoffs from the trash pile. I took a risk and finished it with velvit oil...Worked fine once it decided to dry. It feels really unusually soft, kind of like velvet. The striker is pecan, and the surface is ceramic. Pretty sure I've managed to make a completely weatherproof friction call here, aside from the striker peg.
This one is curly redwood. They're from the same piece of wood but the curl is much more pronounced on the striker, just because of the angle of the cut. This one is slate over glass and has a tru-oil finish with the glossy shine buffed off with 0000 steel wool. The striker peg is moradillo rosewood.
The last one is from ash. I've had a few pieces sitting around forever and have never turned it. I have to say that this wood finishes beautifully, albeit a little light colored for my taste. Might try dying some one of these days. It looked a little plain on the side so I did three little burn lines in it to add some character. The finish is tru-oil and the striker peg is purpleheart. This call was an experiment with a crystal surface. In the past I haven't been pleased with my results with crystal but this call has me loving it....Great low to high range and it gets as loud as a box call. But I can still purr it really softly. Going to have to order some more crystal I think.
