Barrel Length and Flare

[SD Howler]

Please forgive me but I am new to the wood turning of the call barrels.  What are your thoughts on barrel length and its affect on the sound produced?



Also the effect of barrel flare or width?  I have been turning my barrels from 2 X 2 and 3 X 3 inch blocks to end up with a wider barrel opening or flare.  With the smaller barrels, I have also used step bits for drilling out the end of the my toneboards and wood barrels:



I noted the testing of step drilling on page 54 of the book "Predator Calls, The First 50 Years"  by Jay Nistetter and Al Lux.  Lew Mossinger did the testing with stepped drilled barrels and noted they produced considerable more decibels (volume).

What are your thoughts?

Steve
rattler51@pie.midco.net

http://sdsnake.com/coyote.htm Dakota Coyote Howler & Coyote Calling

[wjskip]

I too am new to turning calls.  I have a bad habit of reserching and testing way too much. (retired engineer)  Both length and diameter will have an effect on your call.  I have seen the biggest difference in this since i started to make strikers for pot calls.  A 1/4" change in diameter will make a significant change in the pitch of the call.  To make matters even more difficult if you change the wood in the shaft on the same strike you can get a BIG difference.  For example i have found that hickory gives a much lower tone than purpleheart. (quickly becoming my favorite)  I think what it all boils down to is  - If you like it, GREAT - If the customer likes it, EVEN BETTER - If it works to call the game intended, IT JUST CAN'T GET ANY BETTER.
Thats my 2 cents worth.
Bill

[Al_at_THO Game Calls]

The biggest effect you will see with barrel lenght and diameter as well as flare is "back pressure".  The smaller the diameter and the longer the barrel, the more back pressure which can cause the reed to lock up or fail when someone really gets on it. 

This is a big reason why you see so many commercial open reed calls with short barrels, less than an inch and in some cases less than 1/2 inch.  With no back pressure, the molded parts will paly better.  You can see this very effectively witht he CritRCalls.   With just the call, they will normally play very well, but add the extensions and you will often get pitch breaks, caused by back pressure.

Flaring the bell has the same effect as using a shorter barrel to some extent, by reducing back pressure, but the barrel length will paly a larger factor in this overall.

Also, depending on the type of call you are making, the length of the barrel will affect sound to an extent.  Fawn Bleats are a great example.  Longer will give a softer sound, shorter a sharper sound. 

I have found for me, 3 to 3 1/2 inches with a 1/2 inch bore for closed reeds and 2 to 3 inches for open reed calls with a 5/8" bore seems to work well. 

You will also find that the larger the diameter of the bore, the harder a closed reed call is to blow, and the same holds true for the lenght.  THe Screery calls have a large bore and long barrel, and take a lot of air to blow, where as the Haydels calls are short and the bore is small so they are easy to blow.   

There's probably more, but these are a few of my thoughts on it.  Hope they help

Al @ THO

[Heirloom]

Haydel's are mostly bored around 7/16 with around a 5/8 barrel I believe. I'm trying to reember, I have made some wood barrels and what not for Rod before to fit his stuff.

[Al_at_THO Game Calls]

I'm talking about their plastic molded coyote calls.  They have a very small barrel.  I have one.  Or should I say "had", I seem to have misplaced it this weekend.  I think I left it on the stand I was on Sunday - but it may be in the truck somewhere.   Still, they are small, no more than 1/2".

AL @ THO

[dogcatcher]

I will start with the flare.  This is my pennies worth of opinion on flared bells.  They are almost useless as to the sound function of the call.  Most of the flared bells I see are only a short distance from the end and most of the flare is actually at the last 1/2" to 3/4" of the call bore.  They do not go far enough up into the barrel to affect the sound volume.   For the flare to be really functional it needs to be tapered from the reed to the end of the barrel.  Think megaphone. 

Next is the step drill, or Unibit end.  I personally like them, easy, quick and add a flared end to the call with the least effort if you leave the steps in the wood.  If you are going to sand or turn the steps out then that is your choice, I see no reason for it. Step drill and the sound factor.  Not sure on this but I believe the test mentioned on page 50 of Jay's book is referring not to the step drill bits but to the actually drilling the bore out with a series of larger drill bits.  From all of the old calls I have used none were drilled with what everyone refers to as a step drill.  As an example they were drilled 3/4" deep with a 5/8" then 3/4" deep with a 1/2" and the rest to the reed with 3/8" bit.  Totally different than the step drill bits.  Again with this process think of a megaphone affect on the sound.

Other factors that affect the sound.  Your choice of wood, soft wood will muffle the sound, hardwoods will give you a crisper sound.  The thickness of the barrel also has to be factored in.  Your finish, a good finish on the call will add crispness of the sound, not much but it is there.   Now you have to add all of this up and put it all together.  As you can see everything influences the sound quality.  So you have to experiment to come up with the sound you want.  Then if you want to sell calls you have to hope that the sound you like is what the public likes.  I have some calls that other people just love, then there are the ones that don't care for that particular sound.  Same with calls from other people, some I really love and some I wonder how they ever sell anything.  But people are ranting and raving over how good the call sounds.  So the final sound will be judged by a bunch of different opinions.

Now for my soapbox.  Back before this nightmare of the Internet, I dealt with mostly local people.  I knew their likes and dislikes they would give a phone call and tell me what they wanted, I would go and build it for them and give it to them and if they liked it they paid me.  Mind you they paid more then than they do now, reverse inflation?  Then came along the Internet, prices dropped, and "pretty" became a function.  Everyone wants a "pretty" call, and everyone does the "oohs and aahs" thing but nobody seems to care what it sounds like.  I used to use walnut, cherry, maple and mesquite, now I have a shop full of wood with some names I cannot spell or pronounce.  Most of the call buyers now are collectors, the hunters still buy my good old field grade calls, but they are the only ones that give a flip about the sound.

That is my pennies worth of what I think.  Now give me a real stepped drill barrel, 3" call step drilled 5/8" to 3/8" made out of walnut so I can kill something.

Marvin

[Al_at_THO Game Calls]

So Marvin -

Are you saying "Pretty Don't Call Coyotes"  ???   ;D

Just teasing you a bit   ;D

I have to agree, and I have said it on this board several times.  In years past, you would post a pretty call and everyone would go, "Wow!  Pretty call.  How does it sound?"

Now they say  "Pretty Call!  You did that one justice."

But I think it has to do with the new guys coming into the sport, and the advent of E callers.   Everyone thinks they can get an E caller to do all the work, and they buy a hand call "just in case"  but I bet the vast majority of hand calls sold hardly ever get used.  Which is sad becase there are some really good hand calls being made today.   And you make some of them.

Al @ THO

[John_NY]

I'm gonna buy a bonker one of these days and sit it on a shelf. I know I won't want to scratch it up.
You're gonna have to sell them in pairs Al.  ;D A bonker and a field call.  ;D  Mine are all field calls. I think that's where most of them stay after first use. LMAO.

I like the looks of the one that looks like about a 4" barrel Steve.

John

[dogcatcher]

Al
I know, I bash the pretty aspect all of the time, but look at the calls posted, rarely does anyone ask what it sounds like.  Sounds come first and foremost then the pretty aspect.  Also the basic shape, is it functional as a hand call?  Look at some of the shapes coming out of the callmakers today.  Some of them I would not want to use in the field because they are not shaped for the hand.  And I know that pretty calls can be good sounding calls.

Steve
I buy all of my wood in 18" sticks that are 1.5" square, less waste in cutting to the lengths I want and less chips on the floor.  A lot less waste of the wood and the time spent turning it down is also less.  Saves time and money.

Marvin

[John_NY]

I gotta agree Marvin on the pretty calls in one aspect. I think they sell too cheap. If you can buy a pretty call and it sounds good for $20.00 it's pretty hard to sell a field call.

I think Al should raise his price to $100.00,  after I get one of course.  ;D   I say that because I think your bonker is a great looking call Al. If I could get a finish like you and Braz do I'd be in heaven.

 I do have a few real pretty calls from other call makers but I have used them. I have found that the pretty calls the guys make they are real good at putting on a good durable finish to make them pretty which ends up also making them a solid long lasting finish.

I don't use fancy wood but only because I can't afford it. I like turning cocobolo and all the other stuff but at $20.00 for a call they are getting butternut or black walnut.  ;D

John

[Heirloom]

You know, I see where we rare get asked about the sound of a call. In here, this board anyways, I pretty much take it for granted that a call I see here sounds GREAT. BUT, that's because I know  the quality of work you all DEMAND of yourselves and others. Of course, I have always been of the mind that each and every call should have it's OWN voice, like people, yotes, turkeys, rabbits etc. Even though, the average person may not hear the subtle differences, the critters can. I look at it like this....How much fun would the world be if every woman in the world sounded just like Joan Rivers? How would I know if it was MY wife or someone elses saying..."Sure honey, go head and buy all that new equipment for the shop." or "Why did you buy that?". Sometimes the little nuances of a call are what make it wor so well at a given time.
I like the step drill idea, it does make for a pretty call. Not sure about the volume thing. If you build it the way you want and you get the sound you want then you have a good call. Al, I just checked the Haydel's barrels I hve for fit purposes and they are 7/16.

[SD Howler]

WOW!!!!  Thanks for all your comments, now I have much more to think about when I'm turning the next barrels for my howlers.

It's all a learning process and plenty of experimenting with new ideas.  The only time we truly fail in life is when we do not try!

Steve

[dogcatcher]

If you build it the way you want and you get the sound you want then you have a good call.

I thought was a good statement.  But as usual not always true.  Back in the late 70s or early 80s I made up a few calls, a new design/idea I made up some calls that had the most awesome sound that I had ever heard.  A few of my buddies agreed that they going to be killers from the git go.  So we tested them and tested them here locally, we never got a shot off. 

My wife is from Pecos Texas, an area that is rich in coyotes, heaven on earth for coyote hunters, so off we go.  First we went on a ranch near Orla, Texas nada, nothing, zilch.  Headed to Mentone Texas, same thing not a shot fired, never saw a thing.  Then we headed south, same thing never called in anything.  By now we were really lost as to why this perfect sound was not working.  So off we went back to the ranch at Orla, tried some of the old standby calls, bingo shots fired fur down. 

So even with what you determine is the perfect sound doesn't mean the coyote or predator will like it.   I played with that call idea off and on for a few years before I trashed it.  Someday I might try it again but not right now.

Marvin

[Braz]

That's a very interesting story Marvin. It sure gives one something to think about . Thanks.

[Heirloom]

IT sure does. Who can ever tell what a critter wants to hear??? Eddie Salter told e that there is not a turkey that ever lived that could win a calling contest. Sometimes, maybe we "overthink" the sound. Who knows? The only sure thing is that there is no sure thing I guess.