Author Topic: Can you make a all wood yelper?  (Read 15083 times)

brucker

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Can you make a all wood yelper?
« on: February 05, 2013, 10:14:08 PM »
I am just looking for something else I can try to make with materials and tools that I have on hand. If it is possible does anyone know where a tutorial is or would anyone mind explaining how to do it for me?

Offline dogcatcher

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2013, 10:28:17 PM »
I would guess the answer is yes, but I doubt if there is a tutorial for making one.  The closest tutorial would be the trumpet tutorial in the tutorial section.

Thinking off the top of my head, the mouth piece needs to be a hardwood with extremely tight grain.  I would use ebony for the mouth piece, expensive but I think it would be best.  Next choice would be Vera Wood or Lignum Vitae, you can get them all in pen blank sizes. 

Marvin
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Offline Lon @ First Flight Game Calls

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2013, 01:28:41 AM »
Since a trumpet/yelper is played by sucking air in, you should probably consider the type of wood you use as many woods could be harmful to your lungs if you don't really seal the interior. I'm thinkin that if the wood is sealed really well it might not matter, but better safe than sorry.

 just my  :2:

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Offline Prairie Game Calls

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2013, 11:05:24 AM »
Let me give a few words of advice here to help you in the right direction. One of the first things about learning trumpets is to understand how they work. Yes seems pretty simple all you do is suck air thru the call but nothing is as it appears especially in the call making. When air is drawn through the tube a certain amount of moisture is transferred to the mouthpiece and call. When this happens it will cause the wood to expand and swell. In the case of the mouth piece being made of wood it can have a adverse effect on the sound of the call as the hole closes up. As time goes on it will cause the call to be more difficult to draw air up the tube and render the call useless until it dries out. Now you may think if you make a large enough hole in the mouth piece this would lessen the factor. True but this will cause the trumpet to have a less than desireable sound and cause the user to have to draw so much air thru the call you'll black out trying to get the notes you want to sound like a turkey. You will want to make your hole in the mouth piece from 1/16" to 3/32" dia. The smaller the hole in the mouth piece the higher pitch the call will exhibit, the larger the hole the sound will then deepen and require a little more air to draw thru the call to get your sounds.
The idea on the trumpet is to have nice smooth transitions when making the tube or the mouth piece so you will need a smooth tapered reamer to hone your trumpet body internals. Your mouth piece will be a straight thru hole with no taper. Mouth pieces are normally in the range of 2 1/2" to 3" in length with 1/2" glued inside the trumpet barrel.
The call bodies should be made from a wood that will remain rather water resistant such as Stabilized woods, Cocobolo, Lignum Viate, Ivory, Acrylic, Delrin and the likes of those. Refrain from trying to finish the inside as each time you draw air thru the call you will taste the finish that you used. After a few tries you'll figure that one out on your own though.  :hysterical:
There are tons of materials you can use for the mouth pieces and to give you some ideas here is a list of items I have use in the past, Acrylic pen blanks, Metal such as SST, Brass, Aluminum, Bone such as Turkey wing bones, Goose wing bones, Duck wing bones, Beef leg bone, Camel leg bone, Giraffe leg bone, Buffalo horn and even Deer antler but it must be of solid bone composition as most are quite porous, Delrin plastic and even Cane if found will a small enough opening. Back in the day Cane Yelpers were widely used for turkey hunting all made from cane fitted into each other. Let me know if this helps you at all and don't be afraid to ask us here!

Larry
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brucker

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2013, 09:46:29 PM »
Wow, ok thanks. There is alot more to that than i realized. I guess i will put it off for a while...lol. I think it is going to still be beyond my reach for a bit. I may try to make one out of cane though... So you just find the pieces with the Hole ID that you guys use and fit them together?

Offline Crawdad

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2013, 10:33:24 PM »
Well put Larry.

Callen

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2013, 11:20:59 PM »
That's a lot of good info Larry. Almost like a mini trumpet tutorial.

Brucker- Don't think it is out of your reach. Give it a try. At best you'll make a good one, at worst you'll learn something for future attempts.

brucker

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2013, 11:36:23 PM »
That's a lot of good info Larry. Almost like a mini trumpet tutorial.

Brucker- Don't think it is out of your reach. Give it a try. At best you'll make a good one, at worst you'll learn something for future attempts.

Callen, thanks and I think youre right. I looked up all the yelper posts on here and think I would like to try a tree yelper since they appear so much smaller and ... maybe easier???

a couple of questions on making a tree yelper:

Can I fashion my mouth piece out of old deer antler?

What is the shortest length I can get away with?

Could anyone give me an idea of hole sizes and lengths for a tree yelper?

I apologize for my ignorance, but I am as green and new to making calls as anyone on the planet.  :up1:

Offline Prairie Game Calls

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2013, 07:53:10 AM »
Brucker you can use deer antler sure just make sure you have some nice solid pieces with none of that spongy stuff the tines work best. If you need some turkey wing bones I can send you a few. The best tree yelpers have a wing bone mouth piece but you sure can use other materials.
The traditional trumpets are normally sized like this. Body length 6" mouth piece 2" for a overall length of 8". Tree yelper body 4" mouth piece at 2" unless you use a wing bone in which case it may be longer. For your cane yelper you use either 2 pieces for the tree yelper or 3 pieces for the traditional yelper. When making a cane yelper remember smaller diameters will sound better. The larger the inside diameters are the more "Goose like" the call will sound. When I make a trumpet with a wing bone MP I will take the wing bone and insert it into the body of the call then adjust the length by pushing it in and out and trying the call until I get the sound I like then make a mark around the bone so when I epoxy the bone in I know where to set it. You can use brass rifle shells as a transition piece from the MP to the trumpet body which dresses it up a bit. .22 cal center fire shells work well like a 22-250 or .223. You can also use brass or SST compression rings from compression fittings for a transition piece. I even have bought silver rings in very small sizes and used them on some high end trumpets. Just use your imagination and go crazy with it!
You need to buy a tapered reamer of some kind to make a nice smooth internal bore for the trumpets. Sears sells a good one and many auto supply stores carry them too. Here's a link:  http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00940884000P?sid=IDx01192011x000001&kispla=00940884000P&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=30-113282800-2#crumbWrapper

This reamer will work fine for a starting point for you as you learn more you will develop your own dimension's and improve on your tools for it. I had much help from some really Great trumpet makers when I started and the best advice I was given as far as diameters was "remember 1/4" to 1/8" for your starting point" So make the hole in the body 1/4" and the MP hole 1/8" and you have a trumpet in the rough. Now open the bell end up, using the reamer, and go from there. Also the thinner the trumpet body thickness is the better sound it will produce so don't leave the trumpet body thick and blocky make it nice and sleek and your sound will improve. Also when developing your sound for the trumpet you don't have to stop at using normal standard drill bits you can develop your sound from using Metric and/or Letter bits to make your call a little more on the custom side hint-hint.  ::)

Larry
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brucker

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2013, 08:12:37 AM »
Awesome  :bigup:  :thanks:

Offline Crawdad

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2013, 10:35:15 AM »
Brucker, you have just received some very valuable information from a good man right there buddy, information most Trumpet makers will not give out. Hope everything works out for you. Good job Larry. :bigup:

Brad Robinson

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2013, 12:35:42 PM »
larry thank you very much for sharing that info with us.

Offline Chris at Owens Custom Calls

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2013, 04:28:13 AM »
Trumpet makers are tight lipped guys. Larry has shed some very valuable info

Offline Aaron at Wingerts Woodworks

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #13 on: February 12, 2013, 01:20:14 AM »
 :bigup:  Larry

brucker

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Re: Can you make a all wood yelper?
« Reply #14 on: February 12, 2013, 09:17:13 AM »
I cant wait to give this a shot. Ive just got to get my scratch boxes singing right first.  :stickman1: