Tim Fralick Custom Calls

This past spring I found where an ash tree somewhere long ago split and this part was lying on the ground. It felt pretty solid even though it looked completely rotten from the outside. I took it home and slabbed it up and the curly grain was pretty amazing. Today in an attempt to get a handle on all of the burls and slabs of wood I have stacked all over the shop. Getting them cut down to usable sizes makes them easier to store. The first 5 pictures are of the ash crotch I brought home, I still have a bunch more to cut up yet. The last picture is a willow burl I got off the tree behind our house. It's pretty cool looking in person, the light streaks you see are not from camera flash that is part of the actual grain. In person it looks like lightning streaks that "move" when you move the wood around. I still have a ton of burls to deal with yet, one is a 3 foot long butternut burl that is gorgeous and I still have a couple of big maple burls to cut up yet.

Hoping you all have a fantastic July 4th as you celebrate the birth of our nation. As hard as they try to divide us, we are still "One Nation Under God!"

Time to bone up on deer anatomy before the season...

With the Air Raid Snort/Wheeze call all you have to do is blow through it. No more need to "Hawk Tuah" "Spittin into that thing" to challenge those bucks. The competitor's calls require you to spit into a tube to make the snort wheeze challenge call.

I haven't been in the shop lately, I've been trying to get our new garden raised beds built and a new deer fence put up. I've also been plagued with lawn mower problems with a brand new mower, it only has 14 hours on it and it's been at the dealers more than it has been at my house. Once I'm done with the garden I'll get back to making calls, have a couple of pot calls to make for orders, then it's on to deer and duck calls.

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!!!

Thanks for being a top engager and making it on to my weekly engagement list! 🎉 Lou Belcastro, Larry Ewing, Eric Otterness, Joe Kleer, Robert Tipp

I'm still trying to figure what to make with this...I can cut it in half and make 2 duck calls, or a matching set of a duck and goose call, or use it as part of a deer call...But out in the sunlight this thing POPS!!!

Just finishing up a few Baby's First Deer Call rattles...Kids love them and think they are delicious. They produce a very soft rattle so not to scare the little ones.

Thanks for being a top engager and making it on to my weekly engagement list! 🎉 Stuart Dalzell, Larry Ewing, Nick Elka, Lou Belcastro, Joe Kleer, Eric Otterness, Sherry Lynn Nevills House, Jay Grampy Knipp, Robert Tipp, Cameron Heasley

Some new resin casting out of the molds...The first is a spalted maple crotch grain with bark inclusions, clear stabilized and cast with metallic orange resin. This blank should make a very nice pot call. The second blank (last 2 pictures) is stabilized walnut crotch grain with blue metallic resin. Not sure what I'll make with this, I was thinking a duck call or maybe part of a deer call. I have another blank that matches this walnut blank, but unfortunately it sunk a 1/4" overnight so I've either got to repour it or cut it down to make a deer call tube.

Turned out looking a little better than I thought...I'm thinking it's going to be a keeper...I'll try to test it for sound tomorrow it I get time. I may also remove the frosted glass from some of the finished calls I have sitting here. The labels I'm printing myself on a glossy weather proof inkjet vinyl.

Well the TP4 calls have made a heck of a debut for their first spring, even with tough hunting conditions. From non-cooperating turkeys to a lack of turkeys this has been a rough season for many, I'm just proud to see the TP4's succeed. Below are just the pictures I've received so far from successful TP4 owners that follow this page. I sold quite a few calls through the store and my website, so I'm not sure how many more turkeys met their fate responding to the TP4s.

I'll take a debut like this!

Since waaaaaay back when I first started making pot calls my biggest fear was having glare coming off of the calls. With that thought I have always used frosted glass in my glass calls. When I recently made the Burl glass call I wanted that call to really sound and look it's best, so I went with clear glass for the first time ever. I didn't realize what a difference there would be in the 2 different pieces of glass. Needless to say I will be making all of my glass calls with clear glass from now on since it produces nicer cleaner turkey sounds than the frosted glass does. Since I'll be switching to clear glass I needed something to "Perdy" up the inside of the calls so I designed this label to cover the sound boards. I'm going to print up a few labels tomorrow and get a new glass call glued up to see how it looks once it's all put together....Stay tuned.

Mr. Travis Sprague has been on a roll with his Tim Fralick Custom Calls. Earlier this month he used his lil Minx box call and lil Miss Small Talk mouth call to call in a bird for a young first time hunter. Saturday he used his new TP4 Aluminum over Glass and lil Miss Small Talk mouth call to call in a dandy bird for himself that was sporting some daggers. Then this morning he used the TP4 Aluminum over Glass and lil Miss Small Talk to call in his daughter Raven's first turkey.... Travis has done well proving all of my calls work... :)

These are the stories I love to hear about!

Congratulations Travis and Raven on your success this weekend after enduring a difficult season.

The resin pours I did the other day were finally hard enough to take out of the molds. I did have a little "sinkage" after they sat for a couple of days. These are shiney blue and burl striker and pot call blank set and a gold glitter/brown and burl set. I am a little disappointed in the glitter/brown because most of the glitter settled to the bottom and was sanded off. There looks to be some still suspended in the resin, just not as much as I was hoping for.

I have to brag a little...This has to be one of the prettiest calls I've ever made and it sounds good also!

On a side note my shop has never been a sterile environment to put clear glass calls together in, some dust may be evident and maybe an errant fingerprint inside...just sayin

So Nick Elka, the winner of the 1000+ Like give away call, wasted no time in putting it to work. He took his 13 year old cousin out this morning to get his first bird...And what a bird it was !!!

Congratulations to you both on a great Michigan tom!!!

Ran a batch of wood to stabilize today, these are just a few of the ones I did. I've got these marked for deer calls, it's never too early to get started on fall calls. I've got several duck and goose blanks stabilized and waiting for a resin pour to fill the voids.

I finally have some "Stability" in my life...I may also have to start selling stuff to pay for my addiction...This stuff ain't cheap!!!

Got the second burl pot call blank poured this afternoon, I went with a dark brown with gold flakes. Sadly the pictures do not do justice to how the brown/gold flake resin really looks. We'll see how it turns out in a couple of days. This blank is the one on the left in the last picture.

So I got one of the burl pot blanks poured today. What I noticed after looking at it closely is that I'm not going to have much resin showing in the finished pot, it's actually mostly going to be bark. I decided to mix up a shiny green which will fill in the gaps in the bark and should resemble moss. (my hopes anyway) And actually the matching striker has moss in the bark which will be buried in the resin but may show up once the striker top is turned.

Mr. Scott Burnham used his lil Minx box call to locate this bird this morning . Then after closing the distance used his TP4 Aluminum over Glass to finish the job. Scott just picked up his TP4 Sunday along with his shotgun shell striker.

Congratulations Scott, way to stick with it and finally "getting it done" (as they say).

This call is sold but is that some beautiful grain in that walnut or what?

We have a new winner Nick Elka...Contact me ASAP to let me know what calls you want from the give away. I will try to send you a message from my personal account.

I got these burl pieces stabilized yesterday, hoping to get them poured tomorrow. Just have to figure out what color resin I want to use. I also have to make a couple of molds for the matching striker tops above the molds in this pic.