tone board jigs

B

baitoeggs

New member
Do you professional call makers use tone board jigs, to cut the tone board, or just free hand them on the external reed calls?

I know I have difficulty making the same sound twice freehanding it, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif

I see the professional call makers here marketing a certain call, and I would think you want them all to sound reletively the same /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif


I guess on the plus side, I have several sounds developed, though some of those sounds I have not found a use for /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I use a jig only to hold my delrin when I cut the air channel on the router table.

A very easy and cheap way to make your tone boards sound alike is to find one that you like, yours, someone elses, or even a commercial one.

Then go to Home Depot or Lowes or any good hardware store and ask for a Profile or Contour Gauge.

It looks like a metal comb with teath on each side. But you press it agains something, like a tone board, and you get the profile of your original. Then you can start trimming your tone board, and use the gauge to make sure you get the right contour or profile.

This is how I make my tone boards. Each one by hand one at a time. And like you mentioned, I have several tone boards that will give different sounds. I keep them as examples and if I need to reproduce one, I use the contour gauge to form it. It takes awhile, and you will need to do some fine tuning, but it's what makes a "custom call" a custom call.

Hope this helps.

Al
THO Game Calls
 
Before Haydel picked up the howler, I would make 20 or more mouthpieces at a time. The toneboard jig made this process alot faster, and repeatable. I used a piece of 1" steel and made a jig. Drilled hole diameter of mouthpiece. I used the torch to rough it out and smoothed it out with hand grinder then hand file. I cut the tone boards then would clean them up , reed them and tune by hand. I used the contour gauge to check form of jig, from my "best" design. I still hand cut reeds, at least until I get a reed jig built.
 
I start all my toneboards using a jig then file and sand to tune. Here are a some jigs. The flat jig in the middle is good for experimental designs.

IMG_4324.jpg
 
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