Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting Just a scrap piece of black slate makes a decent call.

Saturday, I went and reconnoitered a piece of forest land just east of the Blue Ridge. I may hunt there in the upcoming season. While I was driving some of the trails, I came across a nice deposit of black slate. It makes good garden decorative rocks so I picked up a few slabs. When I got home, I got the bright idea to try and split a slab to get a useable sliver to try calling on. Not easy, especially when I didn't know what I was doing. There's obviously a trick to it, but I don't know what it is. Never could split the stuff and get a nice, thin, sizeable piece. But I did accidentally drop a piece and broad, thin sliver broke off. It's pretty soft, so I smoothed the edges, and smoothed the surfaces, as best I could with a small circular sander with 80 grit. Then I played it with a wood striker. Now I have a very primative slate turkey call. I may give it a whirl this spring. Volume isn't great, but a wood striker can wring some decent volume out of it. I've got quite a bit more slate. May try to get a better piece off a slab.



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That would bring one in sure enough. Pretty neat.

The slate I have doesn't look like any slate I've seen on a slate turkey call. That slate I've seen that they sell for turkey calls doesn't look like it has any grain in cross section. The stuff I have has grain the the full depth. The grain is paper thin. It's easy to knock a flake off that's razor sharp, but getting a piece off that's more than a few inches square is tough.

Since it seems to sand so easily, I think I will abandon the idea of trying to split off a very thin sliver. All I seemed to be able to get were flakes - until I dropped it. I think I will try and knock of a thicker chunk then use a grinder with a fine wheel to thin it and shape it. I think it would be cool to have a self-made useable call made from state-native stone.

On the piece in the video above, a wood striker works better than a syntyhetic one. They both work, but the volume out of a synthetic striker, like acryllic or carbon, is really low. Wood works much better. I have some old, dried trunk-wood from a Flowering Dogwood I may give to my brother in law to make a me a striker from. The wood from the trunk is very hard and dense. I don't have any with sufficient diameter to turn a pot from, though.

You have access to a wet saw for cutting tile?

Lots of slate out in the hills where I hunt deer and turkey. Looks a lot like what you have. We scratch around on it some, it sounds good but it’s brittle.

A soft wood striker usually makes it sing.

No, I don't have a wet saw. I think I would be able to grind it, though. Just using the 80 grit on an orbital sander made the dust fly. And it knocked the sharp edges down really fast. So I think I can knock off a thick chunk and grind it down easier than trying to knock off a thin sliver, which I haven't been able to do yet except by accident. And you're right, thin slivers are very brittle.

And I need to put whatever i make in a pot. Right now I can just lay it on top of and old pot call I have and the volume is way higher.

Well, one thing it seems, the slate in a pot call is not the same kind of slate I brought home. I can condition my slate pot calls with a scotch brite pad and make dust in a couple of swipes. Not so on the slate I am working with. It seems much harder. Takes a lot of hard scrubbing to get any dust using a scotch brite pad.

I got a new piece off that's thicker my old piece. I was able to smooth the surface on a grinder, and knock down the sharp edges. Then I smoothed it further using my orbital sander and 80 grit. But I not going to be able to shape this slate into a circle with a grinder. It's just too hard. And it needs to be much thinner. And I just don't know how to do that. Grinding it the way I've tried would take forever.

So it was interesting. But I'm at a dead end, unless I can figure out how to make it much thinner but with enough surface area so I can shape into a circle for a pot.

Why not go with a rectangle and do something akin to the Lynch Jet Slate. No need for a lathe. Just saw and glue.

OR..........use as is. Neil Cost's slates were in the style just like you have now + a corncob striker with a wooden or snow goose bone peg.

It’d be cool to call one in with what you have right there. 💪

I will try my thin one. The one in the first picture. The second one is too thick for any volume.

While the slate is pretty hard to grind into shape, it's still a realively soft stone. I'm going to pick up a concrete grinding wheel at Harbor Freight, clamp the second one down, and see if I can just work if down to a much thinner piece using my angle grinder. I think I need to knock the thickness down about 2/3rds to get it to about the thickness of my first piece. If I can get it that thin, it would be much easier to shape it into a circle. For some reason, this stuff seems to be easier to grind going straight through it than grinding from the sides.

Trying to split the slate from the edge is not working, unless I want really thick slabs. So what happens if I just take a small sledge hammer and whack the face of the slate slab? Decided to find out this morning. And broke a piece off that is much thinner than my second attempt, and even thinner in some places than my firsty attempt. And has enough area to easly be big enough to eventually shape and put into a wood pot. I think I can work with this piece. I little grinding the thick areas and sanding the surface should make it thin enough that I can shape it into a circle on my bench grinder.

Get some diamond tipped sanding blocks to help with fine tuning. 100-120 grit works well.


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Last night I bought a concrete grinding disk and a 40 grit sanding disk for my angle grinder. Hopefully that will knock down the thickness without taking all day and without completely destroying the piece. Once I get is reasonably close to the thickness I want, then I have some 40 grit and 80 grit discs for my orbital sander. One thing I discovered, when grinding an occassional small sliver will fly off. Those slivers are literally razor sharp. I'll be wearing a coat, leather gloves and full face shield when I start grinding. Also got to wear a dust mask. The dust coming off slate is insane.

A cool custom pot is a turtle shell. You can buy one on eBay. They are easier to fit your call surface on because they are not perfectly round. I have made one thus far out of slate off of a broken pool table..
It's a fun project. I have yet to call one in with this call The finished call turned out bigger than I would've liked but it still sounds good.
Will post pics when I get home

Years ago I came across an old logging path that cut down a couple of feet into a bank on a high point where two creeks came together. Flint chips and flakes galor. Found a few intact heads, a chunk of unused red flint, and a round piece of slate maybe 2” across and 3/8” thick. Puzzled over it a bit with it in my hand and realized it fit my palm. A palm protector while flaking I presume. By the time I got home with it I’d realized another potential purpose. Circling it with index finger and thumb and using a wood striker it did indeed yield turkey talk. High pitched probably due to its size but a decent quiet yelp.

Now that's pretty cool!

Update:

I was able to use a 4" concrete grinder to thin the slate. It worked so well that I won't need to destroy so much slate in the future trying to get a thin piece. Took about a minute to knock the thicknesses down about 50%. I then used 40 grit, then 80 grit, pads on my orbital sander to get a smooth surface. You can still see some some tool marks in it, but it's flat to the touch.

I plan to try and use the big slab for the surface. And then the smaller one as the sound board.

Next step is the fashion the big piece into a 3.5" disc without breaking it. I will say it held up well to the concrete grinder. The smaller piece is a little thicker than the big surface piece, and I think it should make for a decent sound board if I can fashion it into a 2.75" disc. Of course if I break them, I'll have to start over. But now I know how to thin them and that will definitely speed the process.

I think once everything is mounted in a pot and it's easier to hold, it should sound better.

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Yip, sounds like you’re on the right track. I picked up a few pieces when I was in the woods yesterday. I’ll have to tinker with it some I reckon.