There's a great satisfaction and irony in making your own calls from a bird you've hunted, outwitted, and finally shot, then using that same call to go kill his brother.
I am an amateur at this and there's always another way of doing things and still achieving the same results. A couple people have asked me what I do to make a wing bone call so here it is, remember your mileage may very.
1. I boil the 3 attached wing bones without much cleaning the first time for 45 min.
2. Remove the bones, let them cool till you can handle them, separate them, scrape meat, tendons and fat down towards each joint, leave it on, then take a hacksaw and rough cut each bone below the joint.
3. Change water and boil the bones again for 45 min. adding a little dish soap to remove oil, I put in a little salt too.
4. Remove the bones, and as quickly as you can handle them, blow out the marrow from the 2 smaller bones. Let cool.
5. Place the bones in peroxide, if you want the bones a natural color leave in only until what's left of the marrow in dissolved, or I leave them over night/24 hours if you want them whiter, remove, rinse in water and let them totally dry out.
6. Mark the bones and cut them, the smallest bone has a flat end on it, that end is your mouth piece and is the most important bone of the set, mine seem to be about 3 1/2" before gluing them in place (generally longer = lower pitch, shorter = higher pitch). the largest bone will have a webbing in it that can be removed with a screwdriver and needle nose pliers or a dermal tool with a grinding burr, sand/grind to fit each bone into the other about 3/8" to 1/2", big bone to little bone. I then polish the bones on a grinder with a fine wire wheel attached.
7. I use five minute epoxy to glue each bone together, Walmart JB weld clear 4 oz. two part bottles. l let it cure overnight. I don't use it to blend the joints and I don't sand it, my joints probably stick up more than others but I like the looks of that, you can tell there's three prices in the call.
8. Pick out your wife's favorite thread or colors of your choosing from her sewing box.
9. The type of wrapping I use is the same wrap that's used to attach fishing guides to fishing poles. (To hard to explain here but will give you something to do looking it up on YouTube).
10. Start your wrap by adding a very small spot of superglue to the bone where you want to start your wrap, go from the little bone to the next bigger bone, going from the bottom of the joint to the top, make five or so wraps and add another very small drop, checking often that you did not touch the superglue and now are glue to your wing bone, keep the wrap as straight and tight as possible, using the superglue and thread to climb up to the top of the next bone, don't overlap your thread, it will go one row at a time using the superglue to hold it up the slope, when completed tie off and superglue the entire wrap to seal the thread, add as many colors and wraps as you want. Let dry overnight to make sure all the superglue has cooked off.
11. Now what I do is cover each section of wrap, normally two per call with 5 min epoxy. I do not cover the whole call, the 5 min epoxy is mixed and applied to each section and left to cure before moving on to the next section, the JB weld I get from Walmart sets in five minutes and they're not lying, moving fast I can only do one section at a time. You get one chance to apply it, if you go back and try to fix any mistakes it will show, (practice on something else first like making some thread wraps on a wooden dowel) I start at the beginning and end of each section and do both those first, then the middle, I use a wooden tooth pick to apply and spread the epoxy with, you have five minutes, but take your time and make sure every thread in a section is covered, I look it over under a light and fill any misses before my five minutes are up, then I put it under a heat gun to remove as many bubbles as possible, I've never been able to get them all out but this will remove a lot of them, but get the glue to hot and it will sag, let cure, then do the next section.
12. I use all different sizes of thread intermixed on my calls, it really doesn't matter once it's covered in epoxy. Go lighter colored on the thread than you think, every color goes darker once it's covered in superglue and anything dark will look black. To a first timer I'd suggest button thread or upholstery thread, it is thicker and easier to work with. Any questions just ask.
13. Disclaimer......... I will not be held responsible for anyone getting there fingers superglued to there wing bone so read the instructions on the superglue package first (and anybody who is stupid enough to pursue a turkey better read those instructions twice
) Hope I didn't miss anything but feel free to correct me if I did. Also YouTube has some good videos so check them out. Have fun
Attached are some pictures of ones I've made for your reference. None are for sale, I made these for friends and family.
https://imgur.com/a/aL3OR1Ohttps://imgur.com/a/palRAEghttps://imgur.com/a/DwAyeG1https://imgur.com/a/AEJx6Bshttps://imgur.com/a/WvQ3H2Lhttps://imgur.com/a/w90yAvKhttps://imgur.com/a/UXX8q61https://imgur.com/a/wUB7VIoCaptain Jeff's Wing Bone Call
https://imgur.com/a/sBz0zOG
