I keep my rough stock in my cellar--not the ideal place, but it's cool and reasonably dry. No reason to be fancy here; I simply attached some spare shelf and vinyl (PVC) gutter brackets to an interior wall to hold the wood (smaller pieces are kept on a shelf/rack) until I'm ready to mill up my parts. However, it's a good idea, if you have a damp basement, to keep the wood somewhere else...One disadvantage in making assembled calls is that using wood with a high moisture content will mean that it will inevitably shrink and pull apart at the joints, thus ruining the call and the sound.
Every spring just after turkey season ends, I set aside a few hours to mill up a bunch of stock that I can use throughout the fall and winter, when I do most of my callmaking. The first thing I do is sort through the wood I've got on hand and decide how it can best be used, setting the stock with the straightest grain aside for lids and sides only.
Before going any further, it's important to decide on the general design and overall dimensions of the call.
Then the lid, side, and base stock is ripped to width on the table saw. Depending on the size of the stock I can get my hands on, the width of the lids, sides, and base generally range from 1 3/4" to 2". This is a fairly quick and simple process that usually takes no more than an hour.
The next step is to resaw the lid and base stock to about 1/4" thick, and the side stock to about 1/8" thick. One of the best tools for resawing is a band saw; the next best is a table saw. Safety Note: most table saw instructions include a section for safely using the table saw to resaw. This can be very dangerous, and box calls are more difficult to use without fingers, so it's important to follow proper safety rules here.An auxiliary fence or special jig is usually recommended and described in the instructions that come with the table saw.
Before resawing the sides, however, it's important to run a test with the table saw or router to determine how wide the dadoes are going to be so that the sides can be cut to match the thickness of the dadoes.
The last step in the milling process is simply to crosscut the stock to the right length. I use either my small table saw or my miter box and backsaw for this step.
Once the stock has been correctly sized and ready for shaping and assembling (at this point I refer to them as "blanks"), I then store my blanks in a cool, dry place until it's needed, keeping it off the ground and away from moisture and excessive heat. If the wood has been in the basement all summer, I try to air dry the parts on my screened porch in late fall/early winter when our "Deep South" humidity goes down. Otherwide, storing and stickering the blanks in one of the "living areas" in the main part of the house can help get it as dry as it needs to be, although if the main house is not climate controlled (A/C in the summer, heat in the winter), this won't necessarily help. The best-sounding calls are made with dry (though not brittle) wood.
