The old PS Olt D-2 and the old Faulks.
I am with you on the Faulks. Hard to beat that old call. I got into making calls thinking I wanted to make a few wooden calls but had my eye set on acrylic. I have an entirely new outlook on duck calls. I won't touch acrylics right now. I don't want to offend anyone as I see some are buying and some folks love there acrylic calls. I am merely stating what has happened to me. I just changed 100%. I had a long conversation with myself when I was trying to get the acrylic lines up and running.
Think of it this way. There is no way for one guy to keep up with production when it comes to acrylics. So I went outside to a CNC operator. I would reciede a barrel and an uncut insert (I would not let the CNC cut the radius on the insert). For thos that don't know, the radius on the insert is where the reed lays. It is also reffered to as the toneboard. So a box would come in the mail and there are the parts. I had to final polish, glue and press the band, cut the toneboard and tune the call. I was at around $45 into the call by that time. So you are looking at $90 sales price. This started eating at me.
My frined Dave Spear is a craftsman. I have hunted ducks decades before he even thought about it. He was working in my shop once and truly making art with the decoys he makes. I was grinding on a chinese piece of acrylic. I was not being true to the entire package of duck hutning. I could hear the people that raised me in this sport, now long since gone. The question I kept milling over was what direction do you want to go? Is it really that importnat to make money? What is it worth in the end, nothing. Now if I make a good quality cocobolo call with good sound, a nice oil finish and a brass band, then you got somehting you can give your children when you pass on. Do I really want someone handing their child a piece of acrylic, fashioned by a machine and they saying this is a Wano's custom call. Not on your life.
This one has not even made it to a buffing wheel yet. This is what I want my customers to use and pass along.