Still working off your center make your center hole 3/8" in dia. Drill four more holes vertically and horizontally off of your center about 3/4" away from the center (Figure 7).

Next, sand the pot smooth and apply a good polyurethane coat to it. Let it dry for a couple of hours. Then cut some scrap wood 1/4"x1/4"x1/4" thick and place it around the center hole on the inside about 3/8" away from the center using a good quality wood glue (Figure 8). Clamp it and allow it to dry completely.

Using the 2" piece of glass, adhere it to the 1/4" pieces using a good adhesive like liquid nails. Clamp it and allow it to dry (Figure 9).

After this is dry apply a thin bead of clear silicone to the inside of the 3" lip of the call (Figure 10) and place the 3" glass or 3" slate on it and again clamp it and allow it to dry overnight. After it dries, you have your pot call.

Figure 11 below, shows the assembly of the three main parts of the pot.

To make the striker, take a piece of 3/8" hardwood dowel and cut it to about 7" long. Take a piece of 3/4" dowel and cut it to about 2/12" long. These two dowels and dimensions are depicted in figure 12.

Drill a 3/8" hole in one end of dowel #2
(3/4" dowel) to a depth of about 1-1/4" deep. Apply wood glue to the inside of the hole and place the 3/8" dowel inside of it and let dry (The hole is depicted in Figure 13). After applying the glue and putting the two dowel pieces together the end product should roughly resemble
figure 14.

Round the tip of the striker with some sandpaper and rough up the surface of the pot call. Test the sound quality of the call and sand the striker until you get the sound desired. The tip will eventually look similar to figure 15 after sanding. You may taper your's more or less to get the sound and effect you desire.

One you get the sound you like, you are ready to call in that big tom. It is just as easy to make 2 or more of these calls, so make a couple and give one to a youngster and introduce him or her to the sport of Turkey hunting.

Brad Gatlin

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The text of this page is Copyright 2003 Brad Gatlin for Calltrader.Com. No reproduction or reprinting is permitted without signed written permission. The images are Copyright 2003 Chip Brown and Maynardville.Com.