Can hemlock or spruce be used to make box or pot calls?
Curious because I have pieces of ax cut beams out of my 170yr old house I would like to try and have something made from them rather than putting them in the burn pile.
Vt35mag, I have built boxes from old hemlock from a log home I put a second story on, it was built in 1850 the hemlock was from the old rafters as far as the spruce I don't know I have built a few Sitka spruce calls but not from any spruce from the east ??
Mike
No firsthand experience. Just observation.........
Sitka spruce and heart pine work well. But both are considerably denser and tighter-grained than either hemlock or Norway spruce.
CAN make calls from them ?? I'm sure you can. But, I don't think you'd be happy with the sound of the end result. If that's all I had, I'd use a board from very near the center of the tree.
Talk to a call maker that you would like to build your call or calls. Try it you can't ever tell until it is done, might surprise you and then it may not Also the wood came from a time when trees had time to grow longer.
Yes. Harder wood doesn't alway mean better neither does a fine grain. There are no absolute rules on woods and call building.