Deer grunter shop time is coming

[Vector]

Its that time of year when I start diving deep into getting grunters going for the fall. I was invited to this group a little late in the year last year to talk about my grunters too much, as fall is a super busy time for me between the woods, the wood shop, and this dang thing they call life.

I do my very best to get folks lined out with their custom order over the summer, so they can start putting their call to use when ever they want in the fall.

If you want to get something going, hit me up by PM so we can get an idea picked out. I have a lot of the colorwood colors in hand and ready to go. Several camo-ish colors, but a lot of school-type colors too, including purple over yellow now. Domestic woods..... I like running persimmon and hedge, and also have mesquite and walnut if you like them. Any of those woods, and colorwood are 55 each total.

If you want something overly unique like a stabilized and dyed maple burl or yellow cedar burl, their cost all depends on the wood but tend to run 100-120 each. A year ago, I thought that was crazy, but I now understand some folks really like a super unique grunter just for them.

Doe grunts are also on my to-do list (not bleats, these are soft, light grunts).

Any way on the wood types, I want to make you something that you will appreciate and will be happy to hand down to a family member or friend years from now. This is a family heritage thing for me, and I want it to be for you too.

My grandfather who was my number one influence in getting me working up wood has been gone a little over a year now. We are headed to his barn this weekend to get serious about moving the family fell wood to my shop that was milled in the 80’s. Its going to be a tough haul. Please be with us a little this next month or so as my boys and I work on this changing of the guard.

I started making turkey calls in 2002, and grunters in 2006. The time I spend throughout a year on grunters has far surpassed what I spend on turkey calls now. Its amazing to hear stories of folks after folks turning the biggest buck of their life into range by relying on a few blows of a grunter that came out of my shop.

I am ate up with the stories that come from these calls. I love wood working just as much as hunting and fishing. Its your adventure, I just want to quietly come along.

 

[Vector]

Photos are not wanting to load up for me at the moment. I will add them here when I can get things to play along.

 

[j-bird]

Its that time of year when I start diving deep into getting grunters going for the fall. I was invited to this group a little late in the year last year to talk about my grunters too much, as fall is a super busy time for me between the woods, the wood shop, and this dang thing they call life.

I do my very best to get folks lined out with their custom order over the summer, so they can start putting their call to use when ever they want in the fall.

If you want to get something going, hit me up by PM so we can get an idea picked out. I have a lot of the colorwood colors in hand and ready to go. Several camo-ish colors, but a lot of school-type colors too, including purple over yellow now. Domestic woods..... I like running persimmon and hedge, and also have mesquite and walnut if you like them. Any of those woods, and colorwood are 55 each total.

If you want something overly unique like a stabilized and dyed maple burl or yellow cedar burl, their cost all depends on the wood but tend to run 100-120 each. A year ago, I thought that was crazy, but I now understand some folks really like a super unique grunter just for them.

Doe grunts are also on my to-do list (not bleats, these are soft, light grunts).

Any way on the wood types, I want to make you something that you will appreciate and will be happy to hand down to a family member or friend years from now. This is a family heritage thing for me, and I want it to be for you too.

My grandfather who was my number one influence in getting me working up wood has been gone a little over a year now. We are headed to his barn this weekend to get serious about moving the family fell wood to my shop that was milled in the 80’s. Its going to be a tough haul. Please be with us a little this next month or so as my boys and I work on this changing of the guard.

I started making turkey calls in 2002, and grunters in 2006. The time I spend throughout a year on grunters has far surpassed what I spend on turkey calls now. Its amazing to hear stories of folks after folks turning the biggest buck of their life into range by relying on a few blows of a grunter that came out of my shop.

I am ate up with the stories that come from these calls. I love wood working just as much as hunting and fishing. Its your adventure, I just want to quietly come along.

Very interesting..... I have an odd question. How would a person go about having you make a call if the customer wanted to supply the wood for it? Not sure if this is me just being weird, but I think my kids would appreciate a call more if it was made from wood that we cut together from my farm, where we hunt together. My other question is if you are able to do any "carving" into them. If I get one for my kids I think I would like to commemorate their first deer kill. This may all be far fetched and the like, but no offense, if I'm spending that sort of money on a grunter, it needs to be something special. Very interested to see your work.

 

[cutman]

His work is beautiful and the calls sound so much better than what you hear from the 15$ grunt tubes from bass pro.

I need to find a link to last years thread...

 

[Vector]

J-bird, I am all about using farm wood to make it more special, but its quite the process to get things to go right. When ever the whole process has been successful, it has been from a landowner taking a log to their local mill and getting it cut to the right size and then dried for a couple years.

As far as scripting a call, that is no problem at all. I have some pens that are extremely permanent and work up on wood really well, and then finish goes over the ink. Its what I use to mark and sign my work. Any time someone wants engraving, I get the band engraved, and I think its up to a 10 band minimum now, so I prefer to use the ink.

On the wood, harvested wood needs to be 1.5 by 1.5 by 6”. 100 percent completely crack free and less than 10 percent moisture content, usually a little lower than that. What this ends up meaning is air drying the wood in a decently controlled environment for at least a year an inch of wood thickness. Further, I suggest painting the two end grain ends with wood glue right after cutting to ensure the drying process on the ends is slow.....which very much helps prevent cracking. I personally use Anchor Seal instead of wood glue, but that is not something normal to get.

Some folks think round limb equals round calls. This will not work because the center of the limb will no doubt crack out. It must be lumber type wood from a larger tree that is cut down into these blanks. A normal drying blank would be something like 1.5 by 1.5 by 15” in hopes of getting two grunters out of the middle 12”.

Several times I have had folks send me farm wood with the comment “see what you can do”. This ends up meaning it shows up to me cracked, which means I hit it on the bandsaw over and over trying to find a crack free 6”, and I never do. 1) spinning up cracked wood on the lathe is very dangerous. 2) Calls are so thin walled that a crack in an original peice is bound to make for a broken caller in short order. So, cracked anything does not leave my shop.

That’s the long of it all.

 

[Vector]

His work is beautiful and the calls sound so much better than what you hear from the 15$ grunt tubes from bass pro.

I need to find a link to last years thread...

The thing that gets me, is those $15 tubes they slap together are now $25/$30/$35 last time I looked.

So many things to say that I believe down in my soul about what these grunters are doing, but I am afraid in type, they will just sound like sales pitch bs to you guys who do not know me. I appreciate you giving me the shot for you and for the group cutman. I will stick around, and we will get a few more in the field this year to this group, and go from there. No big deal to me as far as selling goes. I am just having fun where I can and this is a great opportunity you have afforded me I am looking forward to sticking around to see come together long term.

 

[Vector]

Tapatalk is going to help me get these example photos to load it looks like.

 

[Vector]

Glad to see those loaded up! The natural woods left to right are persimmon, mesquite, hedge (lowlights burnt in with a torch), and black walnut.

The colorwood calls are all dyed, layered, then glued and pressed birch.

The hardest woods like persimmon and hedge make for the absolute lowest toned grunters due to the wood density, but no doubt more bucks have fallen to the colorwood calls than any others I have made.

Realistic tones that come out right the very first time, every time; is my number one goal. Everything else is all just part of the window dressing to make for a cool spin on the lathe and a unique tool in hand.

 

[Vector]

A couple good looking grunters for Warrington. Thank you for the opportunity sir!

 

[Cedar Ridge]

These look awesome! Beautiful work.

 

[Vector]

Thank you Cedar. I can’t wait to see them laying on some deer starting this fall.

 

[Mennoniteman]

What kind of wood are the ones you made for Warrington?

 

[Vector]

What kind of wood are the ones you made for Warrington?

Left is a stabilized maple burl dyed with green. Right is stabilized yellow cedar burl dyed in purple. Yellow cedar burl is often tough to come by, but the way it takes a dye is very unique blank to blank.

Both woods without stabilizing are not very dense, so the stabilizing process ensures you can use wood that has a lot of swirly features in it and still have the wood stand the test of time for the long haul.

I do not stabilize wood myself, I watch several friends’ pages until I find square blanks I feel will really turn out well when rounded out.

Harvesting burls and babysitting them to be dry and crack-free blanks is an art form all its own.

 

[Vector]

Thank you for the orders gents. I am excited to see the forum helping get these out to a few more places besides just MO where they have traditionally mostly been running.

MO skipped spring this year, so I got the little window a/c in place and dreaming of fall. Finish is drying excellent outside. That is about the only part I like of hot summers.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Got one last year, got my second one on order! Burnt hedge. Where else can you get a custom tube for not much more than the price of a BOB tube (plastic call with a picture of a buck on box)

 

[Vector]

I will try to remember to draw a buck head on your box before I ship this next one.

I wish there was an ability to get the great gutteral sound without the plastic tube on these, but the extension of the tube adds SO much emotion to the calling, I am just dead set its got to be there on the buck grunter.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Got my new grunt tube from vector and it's a beauty. Burnt hedge, I can't describe the tone, there is just something about wood, so much better sounding than a plastic WalMart job. At $55 it's a real bargain, something to be handed down to the grandchildren. This one is going to be a gift.

 

[Vector]

You GET it MM! Thank you!

My good friend made me a vimeo video (super fancy I might add! Awesome getting to be a part of his process) a few years ago, where I go through my simplified steps of making a hedge grunter (shortened to 7 minutes ). At the end of the video, I do my pressure/sound check. You can hear through that, what max-out low on the call is. Its my final tuning process to be sure a call will not “tone out” like some other store boughts will.

 

[cutman]

Very cool.