A day in the shop with Ryan Bonjour

[bird]

I had the pleasure of spendin' the mornin' visitin' with my good friend Ryan Bonjour of Cedar Falls, Iowa.  I decided to bring along my camera and show some pics of Ryan's shop and how he goes about making a pot call or a turkey cage as I like to call em'.



Le' Wood















Check out the hunk of burl












Le' Shop


















Ryan touchin' up a soundboard or is he trimmin' his finger nails


Takin' a piece of square wood and making it somewhat round for the lathe



Ready to be turn'd



Time to make that piece of wood into a round turkey cage









If you look inside the tube you can see the shavin's being sucked away












A still shot showin' the shavin's flying everywhere









A Bonjour pot takin' shape









Time to make her smooth like a babes' bottom






Measurin' and Markin'



He says "Awe" I say Ice Pick









Gotta have some air holes for them turkeys to breath through









A couple turkey cages of what will become a Bonjour pot call


Doin' a little detail sandin' on the inside of the pot



Ya gotta make sure them turkeys don't get splinters stickin' their heads out them air holes





That concludes this days visit.  Time to go home and get something to eat.

Thanks for lettin' me visit today Ryan

Al

[Cut*N*Run]

Great post bird! Thanks. It's fun to see someone in the shop. 

[Bonjour]

Thanks for coming over Bird. It was fun, and those pics turned out great. Hope I didn't break your camera on a couple of those pics   Kind of cool how the camera made captured the chips flying so clearly. Now I just have to finish those cages and throw the surfaces in them for you. Can't wait till it warms up and I can get a chance to do some major cleaning in there, the place is a sty right now.

[selinoid44]

A sty? Thats not even close to a sty. My shops 10 times worse then that. I thought to myself "man this guy has a clean shop".

[dreis3]

Great post Al.  I've spoke with Ryan on the phone a few times, seems like a great guy, it's great to finally put a face with the name.  Thanks for this post, it's cool to see a great callmaker at work.

-Derick

[.308]

Man, not only do I have shop envy, but major tool envy as well.  Awesome photos of a great callmaker at work.  Thanks Bird. 

[hookedspur]

Great post bird! Thanks. It's fun to see someone in the shop. 

[MarkJM]

thats awesome!!! 

[redarrow]

That was really cool. I enjoy the how to post. Gotta question though. How is the call blank attached to the sacrificial piece behind the blank ? If screws are used how do you keep from hitting them with the tool when making the sound chamber.

[drum817]

VERY Cool Bird....I am going up Al's Shop (SS Custom Calls) sometime in the next couple of weeks to hang out.  I'll post some pics too 

[Bonjour]

That was really cool. I enjoy the how to post. Gotta question though. How is the call blank attached to the sacrificial piece behind the blank ? If screws are used how do you keep from hitting them with the tool when making the sound chamber.

There is a screw running through the piece of Osage to make it a homemade screw chuck. It only sticks out about 1/2 inch so I very rarely get into it. Close though most of the time.

[chatterbox]

Very cool, Al!
For those of us that don't know what goes into making those masterpieces, this was a real treat!
Nice work, Ryan!

[Fox Fire]

Good stuff ya'll,  enjoyed it very much, interest'n to see how it comes together.

[Roostem33]

Looks like a great day!!!

[BowBendr]

Awesome post Bird. It's cool to see where some of my favorite pots came from.