A St. Judes Game Call Build-a-long

[J. Holden]

                                   **Full Disclosure, I've never done a build-a-long before**

Tony, aka Huckbuck, was the winning bidder for my offer of a custom deer call during this years St. Judes auction.  After the closure of the auction we messaged back and forth and he allowed my full artistic freedom on this call.  He mentioned his bow woods and that he liked the antler ring I had displayed on my call.  With that information I started ordering pieces of wood, parts and supplies.

Did you know there's a shortage of walnut burl in the United States?!  Me either!   But, the internet can be a beautiful thing.  I was able to find a piece of walnut burl and ordered it up.  Shipping would take a few weeks as it was coming from MOSCOW!  Not kidding, this is the first time I've made a call with international wood!  I tried reading the newspaper the wood was wrapped in by my Russian is, well, nonexistent.  Regardless, a beautiful piece of wood showed up.

I then ordered some spalted maple.  It's not as spalted as I was hoping for but I think the piece will have some good character regardless.  After doing some reading about spalted maple I found out it needed to be stabilized.  Ugh, another delay.  Once the wood arrived I promptly shipped it out to a bowyer who was gracious enough to stabilize it with me.  The best part, when he shipped it back it came with my new longbow!

Lastly I needed some decent antler burs for a ring.  Again, the inner webs came through for me.  I ordered elk antler burs as I wanted enough mass for turning without running into the soft centers.  I've attached a few pictures of the materials.

[J. Holden]

I've certainly had enough time to ponder the design of this call.  I've only worked with stabilized wood once before.  I left the pieces whole.  This time I'd be trying to combine two pieces and wasn't sure how best to do that.  Again, some reading occurred.  Initially I wanted to sandwich the antler ring between the two pieces of walnut burl.  I think the contrast would've been striking.  However, before I started turning and removing wood I couldn't put back on I gave it some deep thought.  I opted for three separate ring's.  Walnut burl on either end and the antler ring in the middle of the call.  So after some new bow shooting and tuning today I got to work.  I mean, all work and no play makes me a frustrated man!

First thing I needed to do was true up the face of the antler bur.  I have come to appreciate clean glue lines and often wonder how many bows are scrapped because of a gap that was not noticed.  I trimmed the one bur on my bandsaw and mounted it in my chuck.  I then drilled out the center of the bur and set it aside.

Back to the band saw, I cut the spalted maple and walnut burl into more manageable pieces.  I laid everything out and that's when I opted to change the design.  I mounted the one piece of spalted maple between centers on the lathe and got to trimming.  I turned it down to the inside diameter of the antler.  This is usually where I screw things up.  The removal of wood can be mesmerizing, almost cathartic.  Needless to say I forced myself to concentrate and made a nice tenon for the antler ring to be glued to.

A few dry fits first, a few more turns on the lathe to true things up and it got glued and clamped.  It's now sitting in the corner curing and I'll be back at it tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

[Orion]

 Very interesting.  Waiting for more. 

[Terry Green]

  

[Gdpolk]

Thanks for bringing us along and for your generous donation!

[huckbuck]

I knew Jeremy was a skilled artist as I own one of his turkey calls that is absolutely gorgeous.  So when I saw he was donating a deer call for the St. Judes auction I jumped all over it. I had no idea it was going to be this cool though!

[J. Holden]

Alright!  I was able to get after it first thing this morning before it got too hot around here.  I know it's nothing like what others are experiencing, but I find this humidity repulsive.  Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised to see the call piece nice and dry.  Of course I had some coffee in my favorite mug and some tunes.  I figured the blues would go well with todays time in the warm moist garage.

[J. Holden]

I was super excited to see how the glue line came out.  I must say, I was happy with the results.  The one thing that's an unknown when working with organic material is you never know what's under the surface.  While I was turning the piece to round I uncovered a crack.  A "fix" my father-in-law has used in the past is to fill a crack with thin CA glue (aka super glue).  Sometimes if the crack is wider/bigger that CA glue is mixed with sawdust.  Well, it didn't quite work today.  But as I continued turning the crack became smaller.  I'm hoping I'll turn right through it and we'll be good to go.  If not, I'll fill with CA glue again prior to sanding.  That should do the trick.  If I didn't mention it, you'd never know.  Regardless, the piece looks amazing and I'm very pleased with the results so far.

[J. Holden]

Last night Tony sent me a picture of his bow and the bowyer had stained the maple veneers walnut.  So I tried a quick swipe or two of some walnut stain I just happened to have on hand.  What do you think Tony?  I tried sending a PM but the file was too large  .  I think it looks good and will really look nice once the finish is applied.  The antler ring will really pop up against the darker stained maple too, good call Tony!  Let me know if you want me to stain it!

[J. Holden]

After I turned a tenon on the first piece it was onto the other one.  I've made grunt calls with the expandable black tube and with a solid wood piece.  They both have a good sound, but, they sound different too.  I find the all wood call sounds more "natural" if you will.  But I'm not a deer, so, there's that.  Anyway, I mounted the second piece of maple and started turning a tenon on that one.  This is gonna be a great looking call I think.  This wood is fun to work with.  Thanks for picking these woods Tony!

[huckbuck]

Yep, I love the stain….thank you sir!

[J. Holden]

After a few dry runs and checking joints to make sure everything is going to be "tight", as my 21 y/o son says, it was time to glue it, clamp it, and wait.  I cleaned up all the saw dust and tools and prepped my bench.  I've learned from watching the bowyers bench to lay out and tape down some waxed paper first.  This makes clean up so much easier.  I've also got a box a nitrile gloves handy for glueing and staining.  I'm not opposed to getting dirty mind you.  Over the years though I've come to get a little paranoid of chemicals sitting on my skin for days.  So, gloves it is!  They're now all glued, clamped tight, and resting in the corner for another 24 hours.  I hope to be back at it tomorrow!

[J. Holden]

So glad you like the stain Tony!  I'll add that to the project.

-Jeremy

[KSshrewman]

Lookin Saweet 

[SlowBowKing]

 

[Terry Green]

Still 

[J. Holden]

I’m going to get to work shortly here.  Just got done watching church and am making some breakfast for me.  Venison breakfast links and some scrambled eggs outta keep me going for awhile today!

-Jeremy

[J. Holden]

Hey Tony, I sent you a PM.  I have a question for you.  Text or call if you can!  847-542-0283

Jeremy

[J. Holden]

Tony was able to get ahold of me and I'm all cleaned up for the day.  The two pieces are sitting in the den drying in a more acclimate environment.  Here's the progress we made today!

After my tasty breakfast I went down stairs and got the "shop" all set up.  Not having a dedicated area for a work shop lends itself to set up and tear down every day.  It can be a hassle but it also forces one to clean up after every project.  So in the end it's all good.  My wife and I often say "In our next house...".  At my next house I'd really like a shop where machines can stay plugged in and ready to go.

[J. Holden]

I unclamped the two pieces that had been set over night.  Everything looked really good and I was excited to get them cleaned up and roughed into barrel shape.  Again, I had my fingers crossed for really clean glue lines.  I was not disappointed.