This is topic Call making suppliers??? in forum Calls and Gear forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by Steve C (Member # 510) on June 12, 2008, 01:47 PM:
I wanted to start fooling around with making some calls for myself. I've always enjoyed woodworking. Any suggestions for open reed call jigs? I wanted to make distress/whines call to start.
Posted by Krustyklimber (Member # 72) on June 12, 2008, 09:35 PM:
Steve,
I got a suggestion... don't bother with a jig.
If you already have some woodworking skills, making your own toneboards freehand really isn't that hard of a thing to do.
A decent jig isn't cheap either, are you willing to spend upwards of $150.00, just to fool around?
And, to me, if you are just going to use a jig, and have every single toneboard sound exactly like the rest, there are several commercially available "mouthpieces" and calls that fit the bill, so you may as well go that route.
I find making the toneboard and tuning it the most enjoyable, and rewarding, part of the process.
And I'd be glad to offer any help I can.
The most important consideration, is radius.
If the radius is constant, and the reed properly covers the air channel, the call should work (at least in a mechanical sense).
The tone may be off, but that's easy enough to fix (once you have an understanding of the way a reed oscillates, and how to change that).
But, if you are dead set on a jig;
There was a guy, went by Quackerstacker, over on the Custom Calls Online forums that was selling a jig, but I'm not sure if that's still an option.
Try THO, he's a supplier of supplies, and may have a line on a jig.
To start, though, send me your shipping address, I'll send you a sample pack with several different reed materials. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Krusty 
Posted by ninthinning (Member # 900) on June 22, 2008, 04:28 PM:
I like stuff. Here's some of the tools used to make predator calls. The jigs are made by Quackerstacker. The mandrels are made by Dogcatcher. If you want a good jig buy a public duck call jig for about $80. With this you can make both open and closed reed predator calls. Krusty is right though, the best sound boards are made free hand one at a time and take an hour to tune just right.
9th
Various tools.
Using a jig to start a free hand sound board. The jig is for safety in this case.
This is a jig for closed reed predator calls.
[ June 23, 2008, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: ninthinning ]
Posted by TheHuntedOne (Member # 623) on June 24, 2008, 10:53 AM:
Quackerstacker no longer makes game call tooling, and at the current time, I know of no one who makes tone board jigs for predator calls.
However, the suggestion to get a 'public' duck call jig seems to be a good one.
I am way too new at this to know the actual facts, but I have heard it mentioned, and read, that the original open reed calls were nothing more than duck call inserts turned around. True? I don't know?
But armed with this information, I did an experiment a few months ago with some molded duck call inserts and after lengthing the air channel and putting some more bend in the tip, the tone boards sounded very good.
This led to using a public duck call jig, and again the results were good. The very end of the tone board will have to be cleaned up and rounded a bit more after the tone board comes out of the jig, but they will work just fine.
As for making them by hand, while that will work, and there is much satisfaction in it, many people just do not have the patience for it. Many things can affect the final sound, not just the radius of the tone board, though I would agree that is the most important. If you want to try your hand at making them free hand, there probably isn't anyone better than Krusty, and if the past holds true, he has always been very helpful to new call makers.
There is a post here about some new calls that TA17Rem got. If you go to that call makers web site, he has an excellent article on how to make tone boards from PVC.
Using molded tone boards is the way that many call makers have choosen to go today, and they sound and work very well. There is some debate if they make a hand crafted calls more or less valuable down the road, but if you just want to make calls for yourself and friends, they will work just fine. Leave the debate for the others and call coyotes with something you made - there really isn't anything better.
Al
The Custom Call Makers On Line Resource
www.thogamecalls.com
Unique Handcrafted Predator Calls Available at
www.custompredatorcalls.net
Posted by Steve C (Member # 510) on June 27, 2008, 04:53 PM:
Thanks for the good intel. I sent Krusty something in the mail today. Keep an eye out.
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