My first prototype turkey call

[yoderjac]

As you can see from this Thread, I've taken up 3D printing for the colder months after hunting season is over. But still, hunting is creeping into my thoughts. Here is my first attempt at a turkey call:

It actually sounds pretty good to my ear. I simply took a hole saw and cut a hole out of a piece of acrylic. I measured it and then 3D printed the pot call. I've tried several different adhesives. The one in the video was JB Weld, but plastic weld seems to work just as well. Like any pot call conditioning it is important. It works with a normal wooden striker, but I'm now trying my hand at printing a striker as well. Time will tell if that works.

 

[1100LT20]

You’ll get a bird using it.

 

[yoderjac]

I'm one of the instructors for a turkey hunting workshop we teach a Quantico MCB each year. One of the sections of the class is calling of course. Our participants range from folks who are new to hunting through folks who have killed a gobbler or two to those who are quite experienced. Some of the other instructors in this class have completed grand slams and such. It is quite the crew of instructors.

At any rate, printing this rudimentary pot call got me thinking about the next class this upcoming March. We encourage folks to bring their calls to class for the calling section. So of the new folks don't have calls or they bought mouth calls and have no idea how to use them. While we do help folks learn to call on their mouth calls, it would be nice if folks could leave class with high confidence they can call adequately to kill a gobbler.

This got me looking into call building a bit deeper. While the first prototype pot call in the previous post video could certainly call in a turkey in the right hands, I find it very difficult to use. It has a small sweet spot that sounds right. I've never seen acrylic used as a striking surface on a pot call before and just wanted to try it. I see why acrylic is only used for strikers and sound boards now.

So, I decided to build a bunch of calls to take to class for participants to try and see if they can hear the difference. I bought some different striking surfaces, slate, aluminum, copper, and ceramic. The first series of calls I made were a simple design with no sound board. I was playing around with different body designs to make them easy to 3D print and functional.

I modified that basic body design to include a sound board post. I know acrylic is often used as a sound board, so I decided to try that first. I printed the first of these, epoxied in the sound board, and am waiting for that to cure before adding the striking surface. I plan to make pot calls with soundboards for each of the striking surfaces I have.

I'm now looking into printing trough calls. I think I have a basic design ready in Freecad. I ordered some slate for these. I'm interested to see how these sound. Most of these are built from wood with a router, but I don't see any reason I couldn't 3D print them.

I'll post some pics when I get a chance.

 

[yoderjac]

Here are some pictures. These have no sound board post or sound board in them. To my ear (which is pretty poor) they sound deeper than my latest version.

 

[yoderjac]

These pictures show the assembly of one with a sound board.

The pic above is the body without anything installed.

The pic above shows a black acrylic sound board epoxied to the sound board post.

The pic above shows the same call after an aluminum striking surface has been epoxied above the acrylic sound board. The sound board seems to raise the pitch and add some harmonics to the call.

 

[1100LT20]

Nice looking call. Any for sale?

 

[yoderjac]

I'm still experimenting with calls, and I don't think it makes sense as a for-profit venture. These are not the hand crafted wooden calls in exotic wood that can sell for $60 to $100 or more. They are 3D printed, so the artistic level is zero and they are more inline with the mass produced calls in esthetics. When you subtract out the cost of materials and consider I'd need to setup some kind of online payment system and worry about packing and shipping, I don't see any profit in it.

I'm probably better off sticking with building a few for friends. Now that I'm retired, I don't want a new job. If you would like one, I'd wait until after our March class and PM me. My hearing has diminished quite a bit. After some of the other instructors with better hearing get to play with them and give me some feedback, I'll be able to zero in on a design.

 

[1100LT20]

I’d love to call in a bird with one.

 

[yoderjac]

I’d love to call in a bird with one.

PM me with your mailing address in late March and I'll send you one. I'm sure I'll forget between now and then, so the PM will jog my memory.

 

[yoderjac]

I've started experimenting with other calls. This one is called a Trough call. I find it very interesting and I like it a lot. As you move from the center of the call toward the end, the pitch rises significantly. I think one could make a convincing Kee-Kee-Run with this call for fall birds operating it near an end. While each copy of this call that I've made has its own slightly unique sound, they all seem to have this general characteristic.

While I don't see it on a lot of Trough calls, I put an acrylic sound board in each of these. Here is another interesting fact. I printed the exact same call design in a different kind of plastic. It did not have the varying pitch characteristic like the one in the video.

 

[yoderjac]

I made a custom striker that stores inside the call:

 

[yukon]

So cool. I presume you're loving the printer? Reviews on it sound great.

 

[yoderjac]

Yes. the printer has worked out very well so far. First, it has been a great learning experience. My proficiency with Freecad has really improved. At a time when the weather is inclement, I have something to do that is intellectually stimulating now that I've retired. I'm learning more in the materials science area understanding the different plastic filament types and their characteristics. The third area I'm learning is the limitations of the printer and how to design things that the printer can print.

It has also turned out to be quite practical. We are building a house right now. We are using pocket doors for all the interior doors. The interior walls are 6" thick just like the exterior walls. We are using pocket doors for all the interior doors. There are a few places where we need wall switches in the walls that the pocket doors slide into. The electrician was scratching his head. He has cabling that can is self-conduited that can run up the inside of the wall with plenty of room for the door, but the issue was that he could not find a 4-gang box that was shallow enough to fit. He told me what he wanted and I printed one for him. He was so impressed he said he wanted to take one to his next vendor show. He said he regularly runs into situations where he needs something like this and can't find any suppliers that make them.

I've posted about many of the hunting related prints, but another one I did for the house is a trim piece for 2" conduit elbows. I thought about running cat 6 cable to TVs and such for better streaming performance than wifi since we now have so many wifi devices. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided I wanted a more flexible solution. I'm now planning to run 2" conduit in the 6" walls instead. This will let me drop ethernet cables or whatever in the future I need easily. We will put PVC 90 degree elbows on them. I ended up designing a trim piece that will sit on the drywall and engage the pipe. This approach may not make sense in some situations from an HVAC perspective, but in my case, we plan to condition the basement rather than insulating under the floor, so any air exchange through these pipes will not be an issue.

The third practical print is for the printer itself. I'm limited to PLA, PETG, and TPU right now because the VOCs emitted are low enough that they are captured in the active charcoal filter in the printer. More advanced engineering filaments will need external venting. We are building a vent for it into the new house. As part of that I wanted to put an inline fan in the vent with a variable speed control. I'll need to adjust the speed so it does not pull too much air from the printer and affect the internal temperature. I bought a 4" inline fan for this. It was the smallest I could find. I then printed a 4" to 2" adapter so we can run 2" PVC again. Since I will need to connect a flexible hose between this pipe and the printer, the wall trim is different than for the ethernet cables. This trim piece also needs spot for a DC barrel connector so I can plug in the fan controller. Again, the printer came through for a solution.

So yes, I've been enjoying the printer.