By DEBORAH GERTZ HUSAR

Herald-Whig Staff Writer

PITTSFIELD, Ill.

Randy Zimmerman knows there's more than one way to craft a duck call.
"The process of building a call can be as simple as just turning out a couple pieces of wood on a lathe -- one for a barrel, one for a toneboard -- or you can get really involved and start building works of art," the Pittsfield man said. "I enjoy complicating the process."

The end result blends beauty and function in award-winning fashion.

Such woods as spalted maple, osage orange and exotic tulip might be inlaid with lapis lazuli or ebonized walnut patterns, combined into a checkerboard pattern or kept simple to highlight the natural beauty.

One of Zimmerman's fancy calls took first place in the 2008 Callmaker and Collector Association of America professional class laminated, a source of satisfaction for the lifetime duck hunter who turned to making calls about three years ago.

"Duck calls are a fascinating art form," said Zimmerman, who also crafts crow and turkey calls. "It's a pretty piece of wood, but it also can actually converse, in a manner of speaking, with a waterfowl."

All duck calls share key features -- a one-piece toneboard and stopper inserted into a barrel. Zimmerman builds Arkansas-style duck calls, using a nonmetal material for the reed, not mylar like a lot of duck call crafters.

Old-time crafters, and quite a few still today, use a metal reed to build a reelfoot style of call.

"Most would turn them on a lathe, taper it and jam it into the call. Often the calls would split, so a lot of call makers started using brass and copper bands," Zimmerman said. "I really don't need to do that. I turn a little groove and use a gasket to seal it so air can't escape."

No matter the method or the material involved, "it should sound like a duck," Zimmerman said. "Ducks will respond to a call."

National calling competition may or may not reflect what people use to attract a duck in a duck blind.

"Sometimes a duck will respond to just a little quack or a feeding chuckle, which is supposed to sound like a group of ducks sitting on the water happily enjoying being there," he said.

Zimmerman works with a wide variety of woods, including some pricey exotics, but nearly all his toneboards are made of osage orange, also known as hedge.

"It's the best, most resonant qualities. It doesn't deteriorate when wet. It's my favorite," he said.

He harvests much of his own wood, often trees downed in storms. From blocks of wood, he trims eight wedges, cut to a precise 22.5 degrees, glued together, then turned on the lathe.

"If the angles aren't right, when you cut all the pieces together, it will never close," he said. "You have to be pretty precise in order to build that type, called a segmented call."

He crafts up to eight calls at a time, but working straight through, he could finish a basic call in about four hours. The more complicated segmented calls can take up to 28 hours, spread over several days, before they suit Zimmerman.

"I'm getting better at this," Zimmerman said.

All his calls are functional, not just decorative, and the slope of the toneboard determines the sound.

"Sometimes you spend five minutes tuning it, but you might spend five hours," Zimmerman said. "You keep going until it sounds right."

Duck calls crafted by past master carvers can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"If anybody has any old duck calls, before you sell them for $2 in a garage sale, have somebody who knows something about them check them out," he said.

"I know a person found a duck call at a garage sale, paid $5 and sold it two weeks later for $5,000."

Today's fancy calls sell for much less but still are collectible. Zimmerman has what he calls a "modest" collection of 30 or 40 calls, but other collectors have hundreds or thousands of calls.

Prices for Zimmerman's calls range from $50 to $350, and he's sold calls to buyers as far away as California and Alaska at shows and through his Web site, duck-buster.com.

"It's a fun hobby, but nobody that crafts duck calls is going to get rich doing it. It takes too many hours to do it," he said. "I'm happy if I can buy supplies once in a while."

-- dhusar@whig.com/221-3379